Speaker 1: Welcome to the Jason tim Podcast. Thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for taking time out of your day to come
Speaker 1: hang out and talk some basketball with Tommy and I. Tommy,
Speaker 1: how you doing today, man? Fantastic. I couldn't be better,
Speaker 1: getting through uh through hump day okay, and just kind
Speaker 1: of basking in the glory of a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: worth of great Step Current performances. I'm doing great, man,
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. He's He's been incredible. I've been riding
Speaker 1: the struggle bus. I have been grouchy all day because
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm getting old. Um. In the last
Speaker 1: couple of days, I have randomly started suffering shoulder pain
Speaker 1: that appears to be something in my joint I have.
Speaker 1: This morning, I woke up to play basketball at five AM.
Speaker 1: I put my shoes on and I'm walking across the
Speaker 1: court over to the basket that I usually warm up
Speaker 1: on while I'm waiting for everybody else to get in there,
Speaker 1: and my ankle just starts hurting, and I'm like, that's weird.
Speaker 1: I don't remember hurting my ankle, and the pain just
Speaker 1: kind of lingered and lingered, and it kind of eventually
Speaker 1: went away after I got warmed up, but then as
Speaker 1: soon as I stopped playing, it started hurting again. And
Speaker 1: and then also I have to apologize in advance. I've
Speaker 1: had like really bad allergies the last couple of days. Uh.
Speaker 1: I never had allergies in my early twenties, and now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the last couple of years, it's
Speaker 1: like literally just NonStop congestion, running knows all that crap um,
Speaker 1: which is just infuriating to deal with. I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm literally breaking down and I'm only twenty nine years old.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on. Well, it's come for
Speaker 1: all of this. Man, It's funny you say that about
Speaker 1: your shoulder, because I went I wasn't able to bench
Speaker 1: press like twenty five pound dumbells a couple of days ago.
Speaker 1: Like my right shoulder was just catching, like I couldn't
Speaker 1: get it past a certain point. And I went saw
Speaker 1: my buddy and he's like, oh, yeah, you just got
Speaker 1: some tendonitis in your right shoulder. And I said tendonitis,
Speaker 1: was like, there's nothing you get when you're like forty five.
Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, man, you fight sports when you
Speaker 1: were a kid. You're screwed. Like it's just gonna start
Speaker 1: all happening really quickly. Oh, it's ridiculous. I I I
Speaker 1: hurt mine swinging a golf club, like there are old
Speaker 1: ask men playing golf and not getting hurt, And somehow
Speaker 1: I managed to hurt myself playing golf. And literally where
Speaker 1: I realized it was bad was the same thing yesterday.
Speaker 1: I tried bench pressing and I did like two reps
Speaker 1: in my warm up set and it was hurting, and
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, I gotta stop, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know what's going on here. Anyway, I normally, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't normally want with with like forties or fifties, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't even pick those up. So I tried and
Speaker 1: it was just done. I was like, there, how is
Speaker 1: this happen? I'm only twenty nine, and you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer that like feeling pain is your body
Speaker 1: telling you something. I've actually had a stress fracture before.
Speaker 1: It was the only injury I suffered when I was
Speaker 1: playing basketball in college. Thankfully happened during an offseason, so
Speaker 1: I never missed a game because of it. But like
Speaker 1: it was a pain that was localized to an area
Speaker 1: that was like my body trying to tell me something.
Speaker 1: So I'm a big believer in listening to that stuff.
Speaker 1: But man, I feel like it's just has been incessant lately. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so we're gonna talk. We're gonna do our version,
Speaker 1: our first inaugural version of an NBA Power Rankings today.
Speaker 1: I like the idea. Tommy and I were talking about
Speaker 1: this the other day. I like the I like the
Speaker 1: idea of of talking about teams within the structure of
Speaker 1: something else, whether it's a you know, an MVP debate
Speaker 1: or all NBA teams kind of thing, or Power rankings
Speaker 1: kind of thing, because it just makes it a little
Speaker 1: more fun, add a little bit more structure. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna be doing Power rankings today, hopefully getting one through ten,
Speaker 1: but we'll see how much time we have. Um Uh.
Speaker 1: The other thing I wanted to talk about this is
Speaker 1: actually Tommy's idea. It's super interesting. There's a strange phenomenon
Speaker 1: right now in the league having to do with scores
Speaker 1: just being ridiculously efficient. Um. And it's a league wide thing.
Speaker 1: And I have my own personal theories about it. Tommy
Speaker 1: has his personal theories about it. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: it for just a minute here, before we do the
Speaker 1: power rankings, but I wanted to give some basic numbers
Speaker 1: to give you an idea of just how unusual this is. So,
Speaker 1: but to give you an idea. The last time somebody
Speaker 1: went for a whole season over twenty points per game
Speaker 1: was you guessed? It's Steph Curry in two thousand sixteen.
Speaker 1: Literally no one's done it since. And this season Kyrie Irving,
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton, and Paul George are all over twenty points
Speaker 1: per game overt from the field, over from three, over
Speaker 1: from the line, so three in one season, after not
Speaker 1: having any for the previous three seasons, including Steph Curry
Speaker 1: himself in that span. Now, uh, if you remove the
Speaker 1: free throw qualification, so just from the field and from three,
Speaker 1: we have ten guys averaging over twenty points per game,
Speaker 1: shooting over fifty percent from the field and over from three.
Speaker 1: If you drop it down to like guys who are
Speaker 1: nearly at that point so percent field goals, thirty eight
Speaker 1: percent free throws, or thirty eight percent threes, we have
Speaker 1: sixteen players in the league averaging at least twenty points
Speaker 1: and hitting those numbers. So a solutely crazy stuff. I
Speaker 1: have my own theories, but I want to let you
Speaker 1: kind of lead into this. What's your theory as to
Speaker 1: why there appears to be a preponder a preponderance of
Speaker 1: of players who are who are scoring in an extremely
Speaker 1: efficient clip this season as opposed to years in the past. Well,
Speaker 1: I think with anything like this, it's typically more than
Speaker 1: one thing. To try to just narrow it down and say, hey,
Speaker 1: it's only this one thing happening and that's why we're
Speaker 1: seeing any type of phenomena is kind of shortsighted and
Speaker 1: just misinformed. So I think it's a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Number One, I think with no fans in arenas, it
Speaker 1: is more of a static environment than NBA players who
Speaker 1: used to It's not as static as the bubble where
Speaker 1: it was literally the same backgrounds and no travel at
Speaker 1: all times, but it is still a pretty static environment, right.
Speaker 1: Probably less cameras in arenas, less fans in general, and
Speaker 1: just there's not the Probably the variance in shooting performances
Speaker 1: where a guy gets maybe rattled by a road crowd
Speaker 1: and instead of going, you know, two for sixteen on
Speaker 1: the road, he only goes six for sixteen, and at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, that's gonna helpless percentage say
Speaker 1: a little bit higher. UM. I also think that guys
Speaker 1: are just working on their skill sets more, working on
Speaker 1: becoming more varied scores, especially from the three point line.
Speaker 1: Since Steph Curry kind of revolutionized the league with off
Speaker 1: the dribble three point shooting. It is a skill that
Speaker 1: basically every player under six eight works on and if
Speaker 1: you're not, then you're gonna get left behind. UM. And
Speaker 1: it's I think it's really those two things. And then
Speaker 1: I think also a little bit the emphasis on offense
Speaker 1: in the league in general from UM, a league wide
Speaker 1: standpoint from the league office, and not allowing as physical
Speaker 1: of play and kind of emphasizing freedom of moving rules.
Speaker 1: I think it's all three of those things. To say
Speaker 1: it's any one of them or one is contributing more
Speaker 1: than the rest, I'm not sure, but I think it's
Speaker 1: probably a combination of all three of those things working
Speaker 1: in concert together. Yeah, I agree. I Uh, there's one
Speaker 1: thing that if I'm particularly interesting, But I do agree
Speaker 1: with you about all the other topics. I think the
Speaker 1: lack of crowds and the ability to focus has helped.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of NBA players. C J. McCollum
Speaker 1: has talked a lot about this in his recent podcast
Speaker 1: with Bill Simmons. Basically the idea that these guys are
Speaker 1: just as a result of these traveling bubbles that they're in,
Speaker 1: with the tightened the Titan rules that they're they're playing under,
Speaker 1: they are just diving into the game of basketball and
Speaker 1: it's just leading to some really high quality play. We
Speaker 1: saw that again in the In the Bubble. It just
Speaker 1: goes to show you how much distractions during a normal
Speaker 1: season have an impact on on the way these guys play.
Speaker 1: The big one that's really interesting to me is one
Speaker 1: of my long standing philosophy is just about life in general,
Speaker 1: having to do with people just getting better as time
Speaker 1: goes on at stuff, and and it being kind of
Speaker 1: a movement as everybody pushes each other in the same direction,
Speaker 1: almost from a competitive standpoint. So for instance, you know
Speaker 1: MJ gets out of the league, MJ makes UH just
Speaker 1: destroys the league. As this as this mid range score
Speaker 1: who kind of insists on almost only taking UH shots
Speaker 1: out of isolation in various forms around the floor from
Speaker 1: the mid range, which is historically considered usually an inefficient
Speaker 1: spot on the floor. And it kind of led to this,
Speaker 1: like next era of players guys like Kobe, guys like
Speaker 1: team At, guys like Carmelo Anthony is another great example
Speaker 1: of a guy like this where they almost just tried
Speaker 1: to do the same thing that MJ did but weren't
Speaker 1: as effective at it, and and it ended up leading
Speaker 1: to this, UH. It ended up leading to this era
Speaker 1: where efficiency kind of taint And I think I credit
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving for leading this movement. Steph
Speaker 1: Curry as well, I should add him in there, UH
Speaker 1: as players who kind of made being efficient scores cool again,
Speaker 1: you know, like adding you know, all three of those guys, uh,
Speaker 1: Kyrie or Katie and Steph in particular have made becoming
Speaker 1: you know, finding easy shots on the floor and making
Speaker 1: them cool again. And I think that it's kind of
Speaker 1: a league wide phenomenon. Now there's there are less mid
Speaker 1: range jump shots being taken that's going to directly impact efficiency,
Speaker 1: although the best scores in the league can still do
Speaker 1: that to some extent. And then the UH, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: just a league wide basketball war, worldwide UH movement towards
Speaker 1: becoming good three point shooters and how that just has
Speaker 1: changed it. But I think it's really cool to see
Speaker 1: how the entire basketball world has just evolved to the
Speaker 1: point where you know, scoring is only acceptable when done efficiently, right,
Speaker 1: And I think basically you're getting left behind if you
Speaker 1: don't become that way. It's an interesting point comparing it
Speaker 1: to the two thousands, when you had kind of all
Speaker 1: of the the air appearance of Jordan, who were just
Speaker 1: set on taking as many jumpers as possible and making
Speaker 1: them as difficult as possible. If you try to do
Speaker 1: that now, you literally just get left behind. Like the
Speaker 1: Marta Rosen is an incredible mid range player, but he's
Speaker 1: gotten left behind by a lot of his peers because
Speaker 1: he basically insists on only taking mid range jumpers and
Speaker 1: he's super efficient at those, but he can't keep up
Speaker 1: because the guys who's competing against are shooting seven eight
Speaker 1: threes a game and they're doing it near Um. Even
Speaker 1: a guy like Donovan Mitchell, who has been historically kind
Speaker 1: of mid thirties, and I think we can kind of
Speaker 1: dive into Utah after doing this. Maybe um, he's like
Speaker 1: historically mid thirties. This years, he's shooting eight threes a
Speaker 1: game and he's shooting that like forty one and a
Speaker 1: half percent. That is insane. Five six years ago, you've
Speaker 1: been like, oh my god, this guy is the greatest
Speaker 1: shooter of all time, and now it's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a really good shooter. But there's seven, eight, nine
Speaker 1: other guys in the league are doing the same exact thing.
Speaker 1: Lebron famously once said in an interview when he was
Speaker 1: in Miami, I am not a shooter. No. I think
Speaker 1: it was actually in Cleveland, but he said, I am
Speaker 1: not a shooter. It's not what I do. And and
Speaker 1: it always really bothered me when he said that, because
Speaker 1: I was like, come on, man, that that shouldn't be
Speaker 1: your mentality. Your mentality is I'm great at everything. That's
Speaker 1: what it should be. But regardless of what he said,
Speaker 1: what he said didn't match up, which with his actions,
Speaker 1: which was he made himself into a great shooter. And
Speaker 1: that's a great example. Like Lebron is still the best
Speaker 1: player in the league in my opinion, and in his
Speaker 1: eighteen season in A big part of that is the
Speaker 1: fact that he adopted a playing style that matches the
Speaker 1: current era, which is he needs to be efficient on
Speaker 1: all on all areas of the floor. But I do
Speaker 1: think it's interesting, it'll be interesting to see if these
Speaker 1: guys are able to keep this up, because I do
Speaker 1: think that over the course of the season, as defenses
Speaker 1: get into a rhythm, as conditioning gets better, especially as
Speaker 1: we get out of this pandemic phase, as we get
Speaker 1: into April and May, when things are a little bit
Speaker 1: more free flowing in what they're allowed to do, if
Speaker 1: defenses get better, and and it just and it just
Speaker 1: kind of trends back more towards normal. But I think
Speaker 1: it's a good thing. I do have. I do agree
Speaker 1: with you that they are a little too forgiving on
Speaker 1: on the to the offensive player in terms of the
Speaker 1: way they officiate the game, and I think that that
Speaker 1: can be a problem. You and I have talked at
Speaker 1: length about how officiating is is dogshit in the NBA
Speaker 1: right now. Uh, those are problems. But in terms of
Speaker 1: the skill set of these NBA players, I think it's awesome.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's great for the game
Speaker 1: just to have, uh just it. It raises the overall
Speaker 1: level of skill. No one wants to see Eric Snow,
Speaker 1: great player, great defender. No one wants to see Eric
Speaker 1: Snow playing meaningful basketball games where the dude you know
Speaker 1: can hardly dribble with his head up, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Like, that's where that that's where it can
Speaker 1: become a problem. Yeah, I think they're gonna have to
Speaker 1: legislate some defense back into the game at some point,
Speaker 1: because right now it's ridiculous. I mean you have Luca
Speaker 1: and Trey both who are like six times a night
Speaker 1: they pump fake and then they jump four feet forward
Speaker 1: into their defender and somehow they still get the foul call.
Speaker 1: They're the ones shooting free those at the line. Like,
Speaker 1: that's the type of stuff that has to go. And
Speaker 1: I think that's also the stuff that's helping some guys
Speaker 1: that improve efficiency because a lot of their bad shot
Speaker 1: attempts get washed away by bad foul calls. But overall, no,
Speaker 1: I think it's absolutely a great thing for the game.
Speaker 1: Anytime you have a bunch of guys who are super
Speaker 1: skilled at any type of events, sport, whatever, it overall
Speaker 1: makes the viewing experience better. So it's no, it's obviously
Speaker 1: overall a positive thing. Yeah, it'll be something worth keeping
Speaker 1: an eye on. And we're gonna talk on some of
Speaker 1: these guys more in depth as we get down this
Speaker 1: power ranking. So you know, everybody does Power rankings differently. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different ways to look at. It's
Speaker 1: no different than the m v P or any any
Speaker 1: other you know, NBA award or NBA topic that we
Speaker 1: look at. I tried to kind of balance between how
Speaker 1: well teams have been playing lately and how well they've
Speaker 1: been playing for the whole season, and how well they
Speaker 1: project to play when they get into the playoffs, although
Speaker 1: I factored that last one a little less because at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you know, it is it
Speaker 1: is the regular season. Um I I, you know, broke
Speaker 1: it kind of into tears. I had, you know, the
Speaker 1: obvious clear four teams at the top, you know, the Jazz, Lakers, Philly,
Speaker 1: and the Clippers. And then there's kind of two funky teams.
Speaker 1: There's Milwaukee's sixteen and eight, but they've literally played nobody. Um,
Speaker 1: they only have four wins against teams that are five better.
Speaker 1: Phoenix Is has a good record, but they've had a
Speaker 1: weird situation with COVID. And then there are just a
Speaker 1: huge chunk of teams that are all right around five hundred,
Speaker 1: either a game or two below five hundred, or a
Speaker 1: game or two above five hundred, and so splitting hairs
Speaker 1: between teams. It's difficult to do. So that's why I
Speaker 1: want to kind of dive into today. But I so
Speaker 1: I I put the I gave the Lakers a slight
Speaker 1: edge over Utah strictly because I think they have a
Speaker 1: few of the most impressive wins of the season, them
Speaker 1: going into Milwaukee and really man handling Milwaukee, handling Boston
Speaker 1: the way they did uh. And then there's a third
Speaker 1: one in there and forgetting just recently, oh, Denver. They
Speaker 1: completely obliterated Denver the other night. The Jazz also are
Speaker 1: are playing really well. They're they're nine and one in
Speaker 1: their last ten and their last ten, their second in
Speaker 1: offense and fourth and defense. It's really neck and neck
Speaker 1: for me right there. The tiebreaker for me was the
Speaker 1: fact that the uh, the Lakers, I think project to
Speaker 1: be a much better playoff team. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: which team would you take? Number one? The Jazz are
Speaker 1: the Lakers. I have the Jazz at one right now
Speaker 1: because it's not only none of the last ten, it's
Speaker 1: sixteen of the last seventeen that they've won. They've won
Speaker 1: sixteen of seventeen games, and they are they're playing a
Speaker 1: brand of basketball that, honestly, we've never seen before in
Speaker 1: terms of combining not only the volume three pointers they're shooting,
Speaker 1: but the efficiency they're shooting in that it's essentially Daryl
Speaker 1: Morey's wet drain. What they're doing right now. They're taking
Speaker 1: around forty three is a game, and the making like
Speaker 1: seventeen of them. Right now, they have six guys shooting
Speaker 1: at least four threes a game, and most of those
Speaker 1: guys are and five of them are shooting at least
Speaker 1: six a game, and five of those six guys are
Speaker 1: shooting at least from three. Now. I've had a lot
Speaker 1: of complaints over the years about teams that just chuck
Speaker 1: threes at nauseum and they're shooting like mid thirties percent.
Speaker 1: They're literally just playing mathketball, and they're not even trying
Speaker 1: to play an honest form of basketball. What you taught
Speaker 1: doing is the way you should try to do it.
Speaker 1: If you're going to shoot a lot threes, you not
Speaker 1: only get shooters, you get good shooters. You're not Milwaukee
Speaker 1: or Houston where you're getting a bunch of guys who
Speaker 1: shoot thirty percent and you just hope the math works
Speaker 1: out at the end of the day Utah has obviously
Speaker 1: put thought into this. They have a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: who are really really good shooters and can shoot it
Speaker 1: in a variety of ways, and they're just a super
Speaker 1: fun team, man, And they're anchored by a guy who's
Speaker 1: gonna be top three and Defensive Player of the Year
Speaker 1: voting again. And then I think a guy in Donovan Mitchell,
Speaker 1: who some people have argued as the third best player
Speaker 1: on the Jazz and I do see that argument just
Speaker 1: from the standpoint and of he's probably the third best
Speaker 1: in his specific role, like go BET's one of the
Speaker 1: best in the league at his role. And Calmly has
Speaker 1: been obviously amazing this year. We touched on that in
Speaker 1: the last spot. But Mitchell has improved year over year. Um,
Speaker 1: like I said, he's shooting like I said earlier, he's
Speaker 1: shooting on eight attempts a game from three, and his
Speaker 1: finishing like within basically the restricted area, is actually down
Speaker 1: this year compared to the rest of his career. He's
Speaker 1: only about fifty four percent when for his career's around.
Speaker 1: So if he gets back to his normal levels at
Speaker 1: the RIM, he's gonna be another guy who's shooting mid
Speaker 1: forties from the field, over from three, scoring over twenty
Speaker 1: five points a game, and I would look, I would
Speaker 1: still pick the Lakers over them in a theoretical series,
Speaker 1: but this is the regular season and they deserve credit
Speaker 1: for what they're doing right now. They're an incredible basketball
Speaker 1: team and they just I mean, they were just flat
Speaker 1: out better than Boston last night, and Boston's one of
Speaker 1: those mid tier teams, and to me, beating Boston pretty
Speaker 1: soundly proves that they are one of the four best
Speaker 1: teams in the league. And right now I think they're
Speaker 1: playing the best basketball of anybody. So I like the
Speaker 1: point you made about Mitchell because I agree. I don't
Speaker 1: think he's necessarily been their best player this season. I
Speaker 1: think that probably is between Conley or Gobert, but he's
Speaker 1: very clearly their most important player for whatever their ceiling is,
Speaker 1: because when you know, I talked about this a lot
Speaker 1: on Twitter last night after the game, but like I
Speaker 1: there he is their alpha dog who can reach the
Speaker 1: you know, the atmospheric heights that you need to reach
Speaker 1: from somebody, and you're in the stars that that are
Speaker 1: at the you know, that are controlling your team in
Speaker 1: order to beat the team that might be better than
Speaker 1: you um, you know, and and it remains to be
Speaker 1: seen whether or not he's capable of that. But he's
Speaker 1: the guy who who He's the guy that will inevitably
Speaker 1: determine the fate of this team. Now, you you had
Speaker 1: mentioned at the beginning, you said that I've never really
Speaker 1: seen anything like this team. It's ironic because it kind
Speaker 1: of reminds me of like an evolutionary version of last
Speaker 1: year's Bucks in the sense that when you watch Lie
Speaker 1: Stears Bucks, what they did was they defended like crazy,
Speaker 1: particularly at the rim with with brook Lopez. They would
Speaker 1: funnel everybody to brook Lopez at the rim and then
Speaker 1: they would sprint down your throat in transition and and
Speaker 1: always have these guys trailing for threes. It was frequently
Speaker 1: it was Chris Middleton, but it was They were a
Speaker 1: team that was aggressive at putting pressure on the rim
Speaker 1: and then taking advantage of sucking your defense into to
Speaker 1: get three point shots. And Utah is kind of doing
Speaker 1: that at a better level because instead of having guys
Speaker 1: like Wesley Matthews shooting threes, they have guys like Joe
Speaker 1: Ingles shooting threes, and you know, just better. They just
Speaker 1: have better shooters doing the same things that Milwaukee was doing.
Speaker 1: Now they're not exactly the same because they don't have
Speaker 1: a honest type of wing out there, but their defense
Speaker 1: is trying to funnel everybody towards Rudy Gobert. And on offense,
Speaker 1: they're putting as much pressure on the rim by driving
Speaker 1: and attacking closeouts with Connolly and Mitchell getting you into
Speaker 1: rotations and just they have they have to really really
Speaker 1: good players on the wing, and Royce O'Neil and uh
Speaker 1: and Joe ingles at attacking closeouts. Every possession they're attacking
Speaker 1: a defender that's at a disadvantage and just doing basic
Speaker 1: plays shooting the three or put the ball on the
Speaker 1: floor and make the next pass to the next guy
Speaker 1: who's going to be open. And it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: like pretty basketball, but it's very regular season basketball. If
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Sure, it absolutely is. And I would
Speaker 1: also include Bogdanovich in that in that it's a trio
Speaker 1: of wings. And I think another important distinction to make
Speaker 1: besides the shooting from Milwaukee last year, like they're just
Speaker 1: better shooters, is that Snyder has really taken the kind
Speaker 1: of Popovitch adage of like make a decision in point
Speaker 1: five seconds. That's a that's a great pop thing. Essentially,
Speaker 1: when you catch the ball, you should need to be shooting, passing,
Speaker 1: or dribbling within point five seconds. Quick decisions, and I
Speaker 1: think Snyder has one really emphasized that because he is
Speaker 1: a Popovich coaching tree guy. And number two, I think
Speaker 1: they just have better overall passers than a team like Milwaukee. Right.
Speaker 1: They have guys who can not only put the ball
Speaker 1: on the ground, but when they put the ball in
Speaker 1: the ground, they typically make the correct read and just
Speaker 1: that is so key when playing against high level NBA
Speaker 1: defenses because it gives you that extra split second window
Speaker 1: to maybe get a shot off or create a bad
Speaker 1: clothes out and now we're re driving again and we're
Speaker 1: creating either a layup for somebody else or a wide
Speaker 1: open three. They're just they're really fun, man, And I
Speaker 1: typically don't enjoy the teams that launch forty three a
Speaker 1: game and they're doing it just drive and kick. But
Speaker 1: the thing is they're actually doing it the right way.
Speaker 1: They got really good shooters and not only and those
Speaker 1: shooters can make good decisions to It's it's so much
Speaker 1: different to me than it seemed like Milwaukee specifically last year,
Speaker 1: where it's like these guys are just kind of hoping
Speaker 1: the math works in their favor. They're not actually playing
Speaker 1: to their strengths. Unta us playing to their strengths right
Speaker 1: that they have guys who can make quick decisions and
Speaker 1: guys who can knock down threes at a super super
Speaker 1: high rate. So I can't look, I'm still gonna doubt
Speaker 1: their overall playoffs ceiling unless Mitchell really really turns it
Speaker 1: on and becomes like, you know, the the archetype would
Speaker 1: be like third year d Wade when he took Miami championship. Right,
Speaker 1: they hopefully get lucky with a couple of injuries to
Speaker 1: key competitors and Mitchell takes it up another level in
Speaker 1: the playoffs and he kind of is able to be
Speaker 1: their guy Layton games, and he's able to score efficiently
Speaker 1: enough to where they can beat most people. And if
Speaker 1: he keep shooting from three on that volume, they're gonna
Speaker 1: have a punchers They're gonna have a puncher's chance, just
Speaker 1: because if the guy's making and he can get it
Speaker 1: anytime he wants, good luck, like some nights, you're just
Speaker 1: gonna win those battles. Because three is more than two.
Speaker 1: He made a huge one at the end of the game.
Speaker 1: They're in the corner coming off of a dribble handoff
Speaker 1: on the baseline from Rudy Gobert, which was just a really,
Speaker 1: really tough shot and it was a dagger because I
Speaker 1: think I think they were up for and it put
Speaker 1: him up seven. And uh, even though Boston was attempting
Speaker 1: to make a comeback, and you know, I agree, that's
Speaker 1: what it's gonna come down to. But you know, so
Speaker 1: in terms of the playoff matchup, you know, I so
Speaker 1: I have, uh, the Lakers to who will talk about
Speaker 1: in a second, and I have Clippers three we'll talk about.
Speaker 1: You have Lakers, Lakers one Jazz to right. I have
Speaker 1: the yeah yeah one Jazz too. But I had to
Speaker 1: Clickers in third place. And and I find them to
Speaker 1: be the like kind of like a trifecta of bad
Speaker 1: matchups for each other in the sense that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the Clippers have these these big wings that can potentially
Speaker 1: cause problems for the Lakers, smaller guards that they like
Speaker 1: to play, guys like shooter, guys like KCP that that
Speaker 1: may be getting big minutes in a playoff series. Um,
Speaker 1: that would be their pathway towards winning. I still think
Speaker 1: the Lakers are better, but that's their path Also. They
Speaker 1: can throw those bodies at Lebron right like they have
Speaker 1: more they have more wings, and that nobody's gonna stop
Speaker 1: Lebron obviously, but they can at least give him more
Speaker 1: problems than probably any other team in the league just
Speaker 1: by the sheer number of players they can throw at him.
Speaker 1: I am so, uh, with all due respect of so
Speaker 1: sick and tired of hearing that line of thinking because
Speaker 1: I've heard it so many times in so many different
Speaker 1: Playoffs series where it's like, oh, dude, he's gonna have
Speaker 1: to have Robert Covington and Jeff Green guard him in
Speaker 1: this series. Okay, he's going to dude, just wait. They
Speaker 1: have Tory Craig and they have Jeremy Grant. Do they
Speaker 1: have Andrea Guadala and they have Jay Crowder and they
Speaker 1: have Jimmy Butler. They're gonna be able to guard Lebron
Speaker 1: and then he goes. So, for whatever it's worth, the
Speaker 1: whole like I've got wings to throw at Lebron thing
Speaker 1: has literally been the most ineffective uh you know, cliche
Speaker 1: and the history of basketball. I do hear you, but
Speaker 1: I I think if anyone is equipped to do it,
Speaker 1: it's Kauai and Paul George and Marcus Morris is at
Speaker 1: least a big body that can throw them too. It look,
Speaker 1: it is one of the most impossible things in the
Speaker 1: last eight years. Of the last eight years are an
Speaker 1: example of just how impossible it is to stop Lebron James.
Speaker 1: In the playoff series, he eventually figures it out right,
Speaker 1: but in theory, he is getting older, and you would
Speaker 1: hope that younger bodies can maybe slum down. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's gonna work perfectly, but you would hope you
Speaker 1: can make it at least a little bit tougher than
Speaker 1: anybody else has and that and that might be all
Speaker 1: it takes to win. You just get him down at
Speaker 1: fifty percent from the field instead of fifty. So for
Speaker 1: the record, I agree with you. I I think that
Speaker 1: they're the team that has best equipped to try to
Speaker 1: guard Lebron. They're the team that's best equipped to try
Speaker 1: to attack some of the defensive mismatches that they might
Speaker 1: have against the Lakers. But my point is is that
Speaker 1: they are the team that on paper has the best
Speaker 1: chance to upset the Lakers. I think the Lakers would
Speaker 1: absolutely destroy this Utah Jazz team. They've got such good
Speaker 1: defensive guards like Dennis Shrewder, th h T and UH
Speaker 1: and Alex Crusoe are all all defense level the guards.
Speaker 1: And then KCP is an above average defensive guard, so
Speaker 1: they've got and then Wesley Matthews is an above average
Speaker 1: defensive cards. So they've got five really really good guards
Speaker 1: that over a course of a playoff series are gonna
Speaker 1: wear down Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley at the point
Speaker 1: of attack. And then in addition to that, guys like
Speaker 1: like uh Royce O'Neil he's only like six four Uh Bogdanovich,
Speaker 1: he's actually he has a track record of of giving
Speaker 1: Lebron some issues. But I think a big part of
Speaker 1: that is like like Lebron would uh would kind of
Speaker 1: take his time in that particular matchup, and then he
Speaker 1: would attack it at the end of the game and
Speaker 1: have his way with him. I don't think Bogdanovitch can
Speaker 1: stop Lebron, Yeah, because everybody points to as a Bogdanovitch series,
Speaker 1: But if you watch that series, like like Bogdanovich spent
Speaker 1: a ton of time on Lebron, so as a result,
Speaker 1: in the phases of the game when Lebron is kind
Speaker 1: of coasting around, you know, but in big pivotal moments,
Speaker 1: Bogdanovich couldn't stop Lebron. He would just gog walk him
Speaker 1: to the room every time. And then, uh, and Joe
Speaker 1: Ingles is a little too Skinny's six eight but he's
Speaker 1: a little too skinny, So I don't like their wing matchups.
Speaker 1: And then Anthony Davis is like historically just destroyed Rudy Gobert.
Speaker 1: Like and not only not only is he historically destroyed
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert, he gets like a sick pleasure out of
Speaker 1: doing it. Like when he matches up with Rudy Gobert,
Speaker 1: he's like, I it kind of reminds me of like
Speaker 1: what Joe LMB used to do to Andrei Drummond, where
Speaker 1: it's like, I want him to go back to the
Speaker 1: locker room tonight and question whether or not he belongs
Speaker 1: in the NBA. That's the way Anthony Davis looks at
Speaker 1: at Rudy Gobert. So I like, I like their guards
Speaker 1: ability to to to wear down at the point of
Speaker 1: attack against Mitchell and Connolly, I really really like Lebron's
Speaker 1: matchups against those wings and and and a d is
Speaker 1: gonna have his way with Colbert. I think that's a
Speaker 1: matchup that could cause serious problems with the Jazz. But
Speaker 1: I also think that the Jazz can beat the Clippers.
Speaker 1: So it's like this weird kind of trifect because the
Speaker 1: Jazz uh have the the the Clippers have terrible guards
Speaker 1: at the point of attack. Like that's the weakness of
Speaker 1: their defense. The reason why, uh, the Clippers defense has
Speaker 1: been bad this year, kind of a middling defense, even
Speaker 1: though they have Kawhi entered, Paul George and Sergebaka front
Speaker 1: court that theoretically should lock people up. It's because their
Speaker 1: guards are bad at the point of attack. That's why
Speaker 1: that that's why they're a bad defensive team. That's a
Speaker 1: weakness that the Jazz can exploit and it's something it's
Speaker 1: something to keep an eye on. And then you know,
Speaker 1: there's all this stuff with uh Joe Ingles and Paul
Speaker 1: George and all their history and stuff like that. Yep, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I don't disagree with any of it.
Speaker 1: Um just to move on to the Clippers. I think
Speaker 1: everybody seems to think they're better again this year, and
Speaker 1: I think they are, like they're they're better than they
Speaker 1: were last year because I think but Him was a
Speaker 1: really nice edition and so was Siva. Like those are
Speaker 1: good editions that I think do matter in certain playoff matchups,
Speaker 1: But overall, I don't think there are any more of
Speaker 1: a contender than they were last year. That We've talked
Speaker 1: about this so many times that we honestly don't even
Speaker 1: need to go over it again. They still don't have
Speaker 1: a true playmaker or a true lead guard who who
Speaker 1: can initiate them in the sets and control the flow
Speaker 1: of a game when when things slow down and when
Speaker 1: things get kind of ugly. Like as good as Kauai
Speaker 1: is and he's improved in that way, he's just he's
Speaker 1: still not that guy. He's improved a ton as a passer,
Speaker 1: and I've really liked some of the things I've seen
Speaker 1: from him in that area, but I don't think he
Speaker 1: can run your offense at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: and that matters in a playoff series. Like they they still,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, need to make a move for not
Speaker 1: only point of attack defense at the guard spot like
Speaker 1: you're talking about, but also just like guy who can
Speaker 1: initiate offense on a consistent basis against good playoff defenses.
Speaker 1: So the Clippers are better, but I still don't see
Speaker 1: them as a true contender in really any sense of
Speaker 1: the word, unless they unless they make a move, unless
Speaker 1: they get a good guard who can initiate offense and
Speaker 1: defend at the point of attack. That's why Rubio is
Speaker 1: such a perfect option there. And I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: he's saying is, but he's a good defensive guard at
Speaker 1: the point of attack and he and he can settle
Speaker 1: them down on offense. Who did you put first, Clippers
Speaker 1: or Philly? So to be clear, we have I have
Speaker 1: Lakers one Jazz too. You have Jazz one Lakers. To
Speaker 1: do you have the Clippers or Philly? At three? I
Speaker 1: have Philly. So I put the Clippers at three because
Speaker 1: they have they lead the entire league and wins against
Speaker 1: teams that are five or better. That was the big
Speaker 1: differentiating factor for me. Um they just have more quality
Speaker 1: wins Philly. The problem with Philly, and this is something
Speaker 1: to keep an eye on, they basically have one really
Speaker 1: good win and it was against the Lakers, and it
Speaker 1: was in a game that they want at the Buzzer.
Speaker 1: They played Miami twice when they were absolutely decimated by
Speaker 1: the Covids, like literally barely NBA roster on the floor.
Speaker 1: They played UH Boston twice without Tatum both times and
Speaker 1: then the U. I can't remember what the third UH
Speaker 1: big win that they have, but it was also against
Speaker 1: the team that was severely hampered by injuries. So that
Speaker 1: the big thing with Philly is we don't really know
Speaker 1: who they are yet outside of that one Laker matchup.
Speaker 1: So that's why I give the Clippers the edge. Why
Speaker 1: did you give Philly the edge? Um? Because when their
Speaker 1: entire roster plays, they're probably the second best team in
Speaker 1: the league, or well, they're in that top three with
Speaker 1: with Utah and l A and the Lakers, UM and US.
Speaker 1: They're like seventeen and one when they have their starting
Speaker 1: line up or something. Yeah, they're fifteen and three when
Speaker 1: Seth Curry plays, and they need him just for spacing reasons,
Speaker 1: like if he's not on the floor, he provides just
Speaker 1: so much for them. And that's why I really like
Speaker 1: the fit when he went there, because they needed another
Speaker 1: guy who was like a true shooter, and he is
Speaker 1: a true, true movement shooter. He's fifty fifty. I think
Speaker 1: I still don't think he's missed a free from this year.
Speaker 1: I think he's at the moment. I saw that. I
Speaker 1: saw that last night. That's an insane staff man that
Speaker 1: that family has the greatest hand eye coordination in the
Speaker 1: history of the world. Like, like, you have two sons
Speaker 1: in the NBA after having a guy who was a
Speaker 1: sixteen years spot up sharp shooter in the league, your
Speaker 1: two sons are two of the best shooters ever. So
Speaker 1: but that's a tangent. We don't need to go there.
Speaker 1: Point point being when their guys play, they win, period,
Speaker 1: end of story. I know they only have one quality win.
Speaker 1: It's because Simmons has missed three games. So Biases miss
Speaker 1: three games and Vitas miss five games, Free miss seven
Speaker 1: or eight games. Yeah, this is something we're about to
Speaker 1: get into with Milwaukee. But like, the problem is the
Speaker 1: Eastern Conference is once again garbage once you get past
Speaker 1: the top five or whatever it is. And I found
Speaker 1: out that the other team that they have it like
Speaker 1: they beat Brooklyn that's great, Uh, Kyrie and Kevin Durand
Speaker 1: didn't play. It's like and so it's they've run into
Speaker 1: an unfortunate you know, confluence of events with you know,
Speaker 1: a notoriously week schedule as a result of injuries to
Speaker 1: injuries and COVID protocols that have destroyed the good teams
Speaker 1: they've played. And then they're in the Eastern Conference, so
Speaker 1: they keeping they keep getting a bunch of the schedule
Speaker 1: breaks just by playing these bad teams at the bottom.
Speaker 1: But I I agree, like you know, I I, uh,
Speaker 1: Philly when they're healthy has won every game. They deserve
Speaker 1: to be up there at the top. I just gave
Speaker 1: a slight edge to the Clippers on account of the
Speaker 1: fact that they have more quality wins. That was that
Speaker 1: was kind of the difference straight. But I think we
Speaker 1: do agree about the Clippers flaws and and it's time
Speaker 1: to you know, Uh, this was actually something I saw
Speaker 1: on Windhorse podcasts. But did you know that, like the
Speaker 1: Clippers are frank thirty and clutch offense this year of
Speaker 1: the off the double check it. But it was something
Speaker 1: I saw on the pod. I didn't hear that, But
Speaker 1: that doesn't surprise me one bit. Yes, and so and
Speaker 1: so they talked about this in the in the Brooklyn game. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it was it was it was actually kind of genius,
Speaker 1: and in my opinion, I want to say it was
Speaker 1: it was bond Temps who was saying this. I know
Speaker 1: Bontemps can say a bunch of questionable things from time
Speaker 1: to time, but he made a good point in this case.
Speaker 1: He basically said, like, look like Brooklyn can't guard anybody,
Speaker 1: but the Clippers are easy to guard in crunch time
Speaker 1: because they go away from all of their normal actions
Speaker 1: that work over the course of the game, which is normal.
Speaker 1: By the way, when you get into crunch time, you
Speaker 1: can't really run core basic basketball stuff because if you do,
Speaker 1: you know, teams are way more dialed in defensively, they're
Speaker 1: way more physical. The rests are letting stuff go. It's
Speaker 1: a lot harder to run basic actions to get shots
Speaker 1: in crunch time. That's true, However, you gotta do something
Speaker 1: other than just repetitively, you know, go to the same
Speaker 1: isolation moves and and the Clippers make themselves easy to
Speaker 1: guard in crunch time situations. So even teams like Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: as as flawed as they are defensively, you know, you're
Speaker 1: you're asking them to do the easiest parts of defense,
Speaker 1: which is like watch a predictable guy. You know, one
Speaker 1: four low or whatever it is, or four out, just
Speaker 1: trying to run an isolation play where there's two guys
Speaker 1: digging in on either side and there's a help rotation
Speaker 1: and it's one of those things where they kind of
Speaker 1: play right into the into their opponent's hands. And I'll
Speaker 1: have to double check that the numbers. But yeah, like,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they're the worst clutch offense in the
Speaker 1: entire NBA right now. Yeah, I mean to once again
Speaker 1: compare them to Brooklyn. The thing that I'd say is
Speaker 1: Kauai and PG like want to be those guys in
Speaker 1: their head, like they think they can be Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: or Kyrie Irving or James Harden in terms of isolation scoring,
Speaker 1: and they're probably just not. Like they're They're handles aren't
Speaker 1: as good as probably any of those guys, and then
Speaker 1: they're passing probably isn't as good as any of those guys.
Speaker 1: If you're just saying Kawai and PG versus those other
Speaker 1: three guys, that's why Polin can just subsist on saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, we're not really gonna defend, but if
Speaker 1: you get us late in a close game, we're probably
Speaker 1: gonna end up winning because we have three guys who
Speaker 1: can literally create like an unbelievably good shot any time
Speaker 1: down the floor. Whereas the Clippers, it's like a lot
Speaker 1: when you watch them laying games, like man, they're really
Speaker 1: struggling to get like a quality look here, Like it
Speaker 1: ends up having to be Kauai like muscling is guy
Speaker 1: and trying to get a super tough nineteam flitter instead
Speaker 1: of like creating like a good amount of separation and
Speaker 1: being able to just like get off a clean look
Speaker 1: or creating a good look for somebody else even mixed
Speaker 1: up like yeah, yeah, it's it's the mix of the
Speaker 1: isolation and the creating shots for your teammates. That's who
Speaker 1: keeps the defense on the heels. That's what that keeps
Speaker 1: that keeps help defense at Bay, Like Lebron has the
Speaker 1: luxury of playing one on one most of the time
Speaker 1: because teams can't double him. When they do, he just
Speaker 1: gets He just gets beat and and it and with
Speaker 1: Staff it's the exact same thing. Sometimes he's on the ball,
Speaker 1: sometimes he's off the ball, you know. Sometimes he's will
Speaker 1: confer his own shot. Sometimes he will run a basic
Speaker 1: action to get to start a four on three. He's
Speaker 1: he keeps the defense on their heels by mixing things up.
Speaker 1: So real quick, I wanna give you these numbers. So
Speaker 1: they're seventeenth and offense and crunch time this season and
Speaker 1: a hundred and six point one points per one hundred possessions,
Speaker 1: which by the way, is not good. You know, the
Speaker 1: teams you look at the top are the good teams.
Speaker 1: That Jazz are number one. You're not beating any good
Speaker 1: team in the playoffs with that number, no chance. Lakers
Speaker 1: are number three hundred twenty six point five points per
Speaker 1: one hundred psessions, which, by the way, Lakers terrible offensively
Speaker 1: as of late because they can't shoot. This is something
Speaker 1: we kind of glossed over the last ten games there
Speaker 1: twenty seven and three point percentage, so they're just going
Speaker 1: through a really bad shooting stretch. Basically, Lebron's the only
Speaker 1: guy who can make a three right now. But their
Speaker 1: twentieth and offense over their last ten. But they're still
Speaker 1: winning because their number one in defense over their last ten.
Speaker 1: But regardless, in crunch time, they're still getting lots and
Speaker 1: lots of good shots one point five. The Sixers are
Speaker 1: over one points per one hundred possessions in crunch time.
Speaker 1: The Warriors UH eighth in the league and clutch offense
Speaker 1: at one sixteen point one. So the Clippers being that
Speaker 1: far low with as much offensive talent they have is
Speaker 1: an indictment on on on what they run in those
Speaker 1: key moments, especially in roster construct and roster construct. They
Speaker 1: still don't have a guy that can set like Kawhi
Speaker 1: Leonard was able to be super successful in Toronto because
Speaker 1: not only do they have Kyle Lowry who gets at
Speaker 1: the table, they had Marcasol, they had Fred VanVleet, guys
Speaker 1: who could get him the ball in the appropriate spots
Speaker 1: at the appropriate times, Thank you guys, and they could
Speaker 1: space and they not only that, they were also really
Speaker 1: good floor spacers too, So it's like they had the best.
Speaker 1: He had the best of both worlds around him, whereas
Speaker 1: the Clippers he has some okay floor spacers, but nobody
Speaker 1: really that you're worried about. And so the uh, the
Speaker 1: Clippers of the second best offense in the league for
Speaker 1: the full forty eight and their seventeenth in crunch time,
Speaker 1: that tells you all you need to know. In addition
Speaker 1: to that, they're pretty bad defensively for the whole season,
Speaker 1: which to me is is mostly a result of those
Speaker 1: guards that we talked about. They give up a hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty four point three points per one hundred possessions
Speaker 1: in crunch time, so as there was a hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty four point three, and that to me is because
Speaker 1: they play Lou Williams in crunch time and they basically
Speaker 1: become a matchup nightmare on the on the defensive end,
Speaker 1: there are five and seven in games that involve clutch
Speaker 1: situations this year, five and seven. Yeah, I just like
Speaker 1: I said it earlier, they are not a true contender
Speaker 1: and they won't be unless they make some serious roster moves.
Speaker 1: I I don't have any faith in them honestly beating
Speaker 1: the Lakers or Utah really, even though they do present
Speaker 1: matchup problems for the Lakers. I still see the Lakers
Speaker 1: winning that series. And I think you talk could get him.
Speaker 1: Yeah you're still there. Yeah, I'm still y right, it
Speaker 1: just dropped off for a second. No worries, Um, Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I agree. I think that I think the Clippers, uh
Speaker 1: I do. I do think that the Clippers are ripe
Speaker 1: for uh a an upset because of their inability to
Speaker 1: manage crunch time. It's also like, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the last thing I'll say about this before we move on.
Speaker 1: I I think this is a classic example of something
Speaker 1: you and I have talked about so many times over
Speaker 1: the past year. You know, everybody oversimplifies crunch time basketball too.
Speaker 1: You know, the Kobe three to one pulling up a
Speaker 1: turnaround jumper over somebody, and and that naturally draws them
Speaker 1: to people like Kevin Durray. It draws them to people
Speaker 1: like Kawhi Leonards and every single like basic you know,
Speaker 1: uh common sense approach to basketball would tell you, No,
Speaker 1: it's more complicated than that. It's it's about creating offense
Speaker 1: per possession, you know, repeatedly creating quality shots and then
Speaker 1: on the defensive end, getting stops. Like that's how you
Speaker 1: win basketball games. You basketball games by creating better quality
Speaker 1: shots for several possessions over the end of the game.
Speaker 1: And if you just insist on taking crazy turnaround jump
Speaker 1: shots at the end, you're probably not going to create
Speaker 1: more high quality shots than your opponent. That's how you
Speaker 1: end up with a team with Kawhi Leonard, who's universally
Speaker 1: recognized as one of the best closers in the league.
Speaker 1: That's five and seven in crunch time, and and is
Speaker 1: the seventeenth ranked offense in crunch time just by being
Speaker 1: the second best offense for the rest of the game.
Speaker 1: That is a direct result of of them kind of
Speaker 1: overly embracing a flawed approach to what crunch time basketball is.
Speaker 1: Lebron is a classic example of a player that everybody
Speaker 1: like a lot of his detractors think that he struggles
Speaker 1: at the end of games, but he's actually one of
Speaker 1: the best closers in NBA history, and it's because he
Speaker 1: sees the vision. He sees the vision of how you
Speaker 1: close basketball games, which is so much more complicated than
Speaker 1: can I do a shimmy turnaround jump shot over somebody?
Speaker 1: And I think you said the Warriors are eight and
Speaker 1: crunch time offense this year seventh, I think they were
Speaker 1: up there. That's a god awful basketball team. I watched
Speaker 1: them every night. That isn't bad basketball team. And the
Speaker 1: reason that they're still that good in crunch time is
Speaker 1: because one, they obviously have step who can still create
Speaker 1: a shot basically anytime he wants, and too, if he's
Speaker 1: not creating a shot, for getting like a wide open
Speaker 1: corner three or a dunk or a layup, just because
Speaker 1: by the pure fact that he's on the floor and
Speaker 1: he's willing to be unselfish and either get off all
Speaker 1: to create, you know, a slip screen for somebody else
Speaker 1: to get a dunk, or they go pain pain short
Speaker 1: roll to Draymond and a wide open corner three for
Speaker 1: Kelly you bray which I have to watch too many
Speaker 1: more of those, I'm gonna blow my brains out. But
Speaker 1: the point being, point being, they still get quality looks
Speaker 1: at the end of games, and that's what it's really about.
Speaker 1: The Clippers don't create quality looks looks at the end
Speaker 1: of games, and they're going to struggle in those situations
Speaker 1: until they can consistently do that. So I agree with you.
Speaker 1: So let's move on to a team that that does
Speaker 1: create quality looks at the end of games, although they
Speaker 1: also create quality looks for their opponent at the end
Speaker 1: of games. So I went for number five. I put
Speaker 1: Brooklyn over Milwaukee, even though Milwaukee has a better record,
Speaker 1: and the reason why I did because they are seven
Speaker 1: and one against teams that are five and above. Now,
Speaker 1: I think you and I both agree that that it's
Speaker 1: not sustainable, especially since a lot of those wins came
Speaker 1: before James Harden joined UM. And we have our we
Speaker 1: have all of our reasons. Why however, Brooklyn has shown
Speaker 1: that that they can that they can be good basketball teams,
Speaker 1: and I think percent comes down to the fact that
Speaker 1: when they play against a team that isn't, you know,
Speaker 1: on that elite top tier of these uh NBA contenders,
Speaker 1: they can just outscore and I think at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, that's got to be something to factory
Speaker 1: and it's seven and one against five and above is
Speaker 1: nothing to slap chat. So that's why I have them
Speaker 1: at number five. Who did you have at number five?
Speaker 1: I actually agree with you there. I would still I
Speaker 1: think Milwaukee's creeping on them, and I'll get into the
Speaker 1: reasons a little bit later, but yeah, no, I I agree,
Speaker 1: and I think, look, every time I see them late
Speaker 1: in a close game, I'm likely how do you stop
Speaker 1: these guys like And the question is going to be
Speaker 1: long term, can they keep games close enough when it
Speaker 1: gets to the playoffs to actually be able to to
Speaker 1: actualize how good they are late and close games, because
Speaker 1: it's literally just they're creating wide open looks almost every
Speaker 1: single time down the floor in the last six minutes
Speaker 1: of basketball game, which is probably the toughest thing to
Speaker 1: do in the game of basketball is to consistently create
Speaker 1: those looks we just talked about it. They do it
Speaker 1: damn near every time because their their top three guys
Speaker 1: are so talented and so skilled at doing it. And
Speaker 1: I think what has actually been nice for Hardened since
Speaker 1: going there. He doesn't have to be the guy that
Speaker 1: makes the shot late in the game, right because he
Speaker 1: is a good passer when he wants to be, and
Speaker 1: so he's able to just kind of one, he has
Speaker 1: the spacing to operate and just go to the rim.
Speaker 1: Number two, if the help does come, he's able to
Speaker 1: find who's ever open um. So no, I think Brooklyn
Speaker 1: at five is totally fair. But I do think Milwaukee
Speaker 1: has been playing better as a late, like the last
Speaker 1: week or two. They've made some adjustments that I really like,
Speaker 1: that have um that I think are gonna be good
Speaker 1: for them long term. I don't know if it will
Speaker 1: actually make them a better regular season basketball team, but
Speaker 1: I think it's it's gonna be good for them come
Speaker 1: playoff time. But no, Brooklyn is I mean, they're also
Speaker 1: giving up like a hundred and twenty points every game.
Speaker 1: They just lost the Pistons like a couple of days ago.
Speaker 1: I was even the last night of the night before
Speaker 1: because they literally just couldn't get stops. Katie was out,
Speaker 1: so that obviously makes a big difference. They're asking so
Speaker 1: much of him right now, and maybe the route is
Speaker 1: Katie only takes fifteen to seventeen shots a game, and
Speaker 1: they give him more defensive responsibility and he just kind
Speaker 1: of is a more of a catch it like catching
Speaker 1: shoe guy attack closeouts and then Iso Laton games um,
Speaker 1: and they let Kyrie and Harden kind of handle the
Speaker 1: creations of the first forty or so minutes um that
Speaker 1: they obviously still have issues, but I have no issue
Speaker 1: with them at five because the talent is so absurd
Speaker 1: at the top end of the roster. Yeah, you and
Speaker 1: I have talked a lot about this, but I agree
Speaker 1: that the pathway for them is Kevin Duran embracing the
Speaker 1: defensive end of the ball. But I do think that
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of stuck with between a rock and
Speaker 1: hard place for this season because DeAndre Jordan is no
Speaker 1: longer capable of defending at an NBA level. He was
Speaker 1: getting attacked in isolation by Mason Plumbly the other day,
Speaker 1: Like somebody said on Twitter that Mason Plumbly looked like
Speaker 1: urbtas Sabonis in the Remember it was I don't remember
Speaker 1: who it was, but I was like, yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 1: even inaccurate. It's pretty It's pretty bad when James Harden
Speaker 1: is pulling you to the side during a time out
Speaker 1: and being like, bro, I need you to defend a
Speaker 1: little bit better. I but like the it's just gonna
Speaker 1: be tough from this year they they're up for. Let's
Speaker 1: say they just outscore everybody in the Eastern Conference and
Speaker 1: make the finals. I cannot imagine a worst matchup for
Speaker 1: Brooklyn than the Lakers. The the all kinds of bodies
Speaker 1: to throw out James Harden, including Alex Cruzo, who did
Speaker 1: an amazing job guarding him in the playoffs last year,
Speaker 1: all sorts like Dennis Shrewder and no one can guard
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving. But there are guys on that roster who
Speaker 1: are going to give him problems. Um Lebron and and
Speaker 1: Lebron is literally the best possible defender you could drop
Speaker 1: for Kevin Durant and he the problem is is when
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant was coming full steam at him in two
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen and two thousand eighteen, Lebron it kind of
Speaker 1: let the defensive rope slip. And I've told you that
Speaker 1: has a lot to do. In my opinion, I think
Speaker 1: it's because he didn't think he could win in But
Speaker 1: when you actually watched Lebron try to guard k D
Speaker 1: and the most recent example, if you want to look
Speaker 1: at film his game one of the two thousand eighteen finals,
Speaker 1: the one time Lebron was like, I'm gonna try to
Speaker 1: beat these guys, even if it's just once. And uh,
Speaker 1: in that game, he gets really physical with him. Lebron
Speaker 1: has a like a gift for the ability to be
Speaker 1: physical within the rules in a way that refs can't
Speaker 1: really see or call. Uh. You saw him do it
Speaker 1: to shay Gil just Alexander the other day, where he
Speaker 1: would make a series of moves and there's definitely contacts,
Speaker 1: but it's not contact that you can call a foul.
Speaker 1: But he's so strong that that contact just has like
Speaker 1: a crazy effect on the ball handler, like he just
Speaker 1: kind of stumbles back and and loses his footing. But
Speaker 1: I think he's so strong and so like he's so
Speaker 1: strong through his core and like his legs, and he's
Speaker 1: so wide at this point because yeah, I mean he's
Speaker 1: put on mass just by nature of being like thirty
Speaker 1: five three six years old. That, yeah, he's able to
Speaker 1: control the control offensive players as much as you can
Speaker 1: within the con ends of the rule book. In one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he he can still be a really good on ball
Speaker 1: defender when he wants to be, and he has wanted
Speaker 1: to be for most of the year, and and and
Speaker 1: Kevin in the theory where Kevin Durant has made the finals,
Speaker 1: in this case, he will have done what we talked about,
Speaker 1: adopting a defensive role and becoming more passive on the
Speaker 1: offensive end, Like Lebron can be guarding Kevin Durant and
Speaker 1: primarily being help defense most of the game because of
Speaker 1: the fact that Kyrie Irving and James Harden are gonna
Speaker 1: be taking forty seven dribbles per possession trying to get
Speaker 1: a shot, so it's not even like a fatigue thing
Speaker 1: for Lebron. And then on the interior on the offensive end,
Speaker 1: Lebron and Anthony Davis in Montrese Harald too are going
Speaker 1: to absolutely murder that team. They're gonna score ninety points
Speaker 1: in the pain. It's gonna be a blood bath. So
Speaker 1: so I respect Brooklyn. They've had some success this year,
Speaker 1: a lot more success than people are letting on. Like
Speaker 1: I said, seven and one against teams that are five
Speaker 1: and above. UH. But even if they happen to make
Speaker 1: it out of the East, I think they're running into
Speaker 1: a buzz saw. The thing I I think Milwaukee is
Speaker 1: a fraud, and I've always thought that they were a
Speaker 1: fraud since last year, and I can't believe they're getting
Speaker 1: away with the fraud again this year. And I'm glad
Speaker 1: that it's flying under the radar from the standpoint of
Speaker 1: media attention because of how bad they flamed out last year.
Speaker 1: But can you believe their number one in net rating
Speaker 1: again this year by a big chuck, a big chunk.
Speaker 1: They're the only team in the league gets over ten
Speaker 1: and net rating over plus ten. They're sixteen and eight now,
Speaker 1: so the records getting out there, but somehow they've They've
Speaker 1: only played a third of their games against teams that
Speaker 1: are five better. And this was my big thing that
Speaker 1: I hammered home last year with with them playing UH,
Speaker 1: one of the easiest schedules in the history of the
Speaker 1: NBA was this idea that like they would just they
Speaker 1: have a machine. It's like literally like a chipper shredder,
Speaker 1: and when you throw a piece of wood in this case,
Speaker 1: a bad basketball team into it, they demolish them every
Speaker 1: single time. But then when they run into anything that's
Speaker 1: not an easy basketball team, anything that resembles a quality
Speaker 1: basketball team, they're five hundred basketball team like that that
Speaker 1: are maybe a little bit better than over the course
Speaker 1: of a full season. But that's what this team is.
Speaker 1: This team just beats the living ship out of every
Speaker 1: Detroit Pistons, every Chicago Bulls, every Atlanta Hawks, or whoever
Speaker 1: it is that comes in through the door. And then
Speaker 1: they will against these better they didn't have a quality
Speaker 1: when the other night against Denver. I don't want to
Speaker 1: completely understand a good yeah, but I'm sick of it
Speaker 1: because like, like literally this is the same team from
Speaker 1: last year. Their record is not quite as good, but
Speaker 1: they're demolishing teams and that was the big thing last
Speaker 1: year for Janice's MVP cases. Oh they're demolishing everybody, and
Speaker 1: it's like, can every can we just all collectively admit
Speaker 1: and understand that this is the stick they beat the
Speaker 1: ship out of bad teams and that, and it inflates
Speaker 1: every statistical thing that they accomplished over the course of
Speaker 1: the season. I don't disagree on the whole, but I
Speaker 1: am going to divert a little bit here. So the
Speaker 1: reason why they put they play so many bad teams
Speaker 1: because their divisions. It's not just the Eastern Conference. Their
Speaker 1: division sucks kind of year over year, so it's they're
Speaker 1: the second team in the conference right now. The rest
Speaker 1: of the division, the Central Division is Indiana who's fifth,
Speaker 1: Cleveland who's eleventh, Chicago who's twelfth, and the Droid whose fifteen,
Speaker 1: And those bottom three teams are bad basically every year,
Speaker 1: or at least they have been since Lebron left Cleveland,
Speaker 1: right those those three teams at the bottom of that
Speaker 1: division have been bad every year. So basically they get
Speaker 1: to play twelve games against three of the worst teams
Speaker 1: in the league every year since they've actually become you know,
Speaker 1: this kind of juggernaut Milwaukee. To go along with that,
Speaker 1: they're also in the East, so they just get naturally
Speaker 1: more easy games and team in the West would. But
Speaker 1: what I'll say is I think they might be starting
Speaker 1: to figure some things out. I don't want to jump
Speaker 1: the gun too much and say that they are, but
Speaker 1: I think the Denver Win is instructive. Um. They are
Speaker 1: starting to use the Honest more as a role many.
Speaker 1: They're using him off the ball, they're starting to use
Speaker 1: him more in the post. They're starting to run more
Speaker 1: stuff through Chris Middleton and Drew Holidays So and Drew
Speaker 1: we talked about kind of at length in our free
Speaker 1: season pod. He's not really the guy you want to
Speaker 1: run a bunch of offense through. But if Chris Middleton
Speaker 1: is going to be this efficient, then yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you can actually run a lot of offense through him,
Speaker 1: especially if you're featuring the Honest more in areas that
Speaker 1: play to his strengths the post and as a role man.
Speaker 1: If you can get your Honest catching the ball at
Speaker 1: seventeen feet against a slightly scrambled defense as opposed to
Speaker 1: him swearing up all five defenders from thirty feet, that's
Speaker 1: a huge difference, because now he's catching the ball and
Speaker 1: he is he is good. If you know that defense
Speaker 1: is slightly off kilter, he's gonna be able to either
Speaker 1: get to the rim or create a wide open shot
Speaker 1: for somebody else. So I do think they are showing
Speaker 1: signs of figuring things out. I don't want to jump
Speaker 1: the gun and say they certainly have, because they could
Speaker 1: easily revert back to the way they've been playing for
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, um, which is they shred
Speaker 1: really bad teams by your honest, being overpowering at the rim,
Speaker 1: and then they create wide, wide open three pointers as
Speaker 1: a result of that, And that's why they always decimate
Speaker 1: bad teams because are getting Johanna's dunks and layups and
Speaker 1: wide open threes for their role guys. And that I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're doing that consistently, you're gonna be anybody. But
Speaker 1: they just haven't been able to do it against the
Speaker 1: good teams. That same formula doesn't work because honest really
Speaker 1: isn't that guy as an initiator. But I think moving
Speaker 1: him off the ball more is a really good thing
Speaker 1: if they continue to stick with it, because they're gonna
Speaker 1: be good defensively at the end of the day. Like
Speaker 1: they do have the pieces. Um that they don't have
Speaker 1: a ton of death, but they do have the pieces
Speaker 1: to be a really good team defensively, and especially a
Speaker 1: good playoff team defensively because they figure to be switchable
Speaker 1: if they use the honest at the five more is
Speaker 1: a defensive weapon in a playoff series. Absolutely no, We've
Speaker 1: We've seen it time and again. Um. But I hope
Speaker 1: they keep doing what they're doing, man, because I think
Speaker 1: it's it's a good thing that we have more good
Speaker 1: teams in the NBA that are playing to their strengths
Speaker 1: instead of just trying to play the same style of basketball.
Speaker 1: So I hope you Hona stays in the postport and
Speaker 1: I hope he keeps getting used as a role man
Speaker 1: because those are both things that are gonna help them
Speaker 1: win playoff series. I just think it's funny that they're
Speaker 1: properly rated this year by the masses despite more or
Speaker 1: less being the same team. I just think that's funny
Speaker 1: there they had, uh they had a better record last
Speaker 1: year as a result of just over the totality of
Speaker 1: the season them having such a good record against those
Speaker 1: bad teams. They got off to a rough start this year,
Speaker 1: probably having something to do with bubble turnaround and some
Speaker 1: of the chemistry stuff from Drew Holiday, But they are
Speaker 1: more or less the same team in what they've been
Speaker 1: able to accomplish this year. And I just think it's
Speaker 1: funny that they're properly rated, because I was screaming this
Speaker 1: from the mountaintops all last year. Last year, it's all yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing that might hurt them, it might
Speaker 1: not even matter all this These are kind of slight
Speaker 1: improvements that I'm talking about come playoff time. Is the
Speaker 1: fact that they're not deep at all, Like they're they're
Speaker 1: top five guys I'll play like plus a game at least,
Speaker 1: and then they don't. I think they only have one
Speaker 1: other guy in the roster over twenty minutes. Like that
Speaker 1: is not a deep team. So if any of their
Speaker 1: top five guys get gets hurt, it's they're basically curtains.
Speaker 1: They're they're gonna be asking guys who were seventh, eighth,
Speaker 1: ninth man to play starter minutes. So the the last
Speaker 1: team that I had that was in that uh top
Speaker 1: two tiers, the top tier being the great teams we
Speaker 1: talked about and then the funky teams there in the middle.
Speaker 1: I put Phoenix UM. They're currently fourth in the West.
Speaker 1: They're six and four in their last ten, their fourteen
Speaker 1: and nine overall. They are the third best defense in
Speaker 1: the league over their last ten UM's overall defense fifth
Speaker 1: overall on defense. So that's not it's not a fluke.
Speaker 1: They are a really good defensive team. Yes, and and
Speaker 1: they they have a clear identity that's forming. And this
Speaker 1: is something that you and I talked about all the
Speaker 1: time as like a necessity to contend for a championships,
Speaker 1: you gotta have a clear cut identity because when the
Speaker 1: ship hits the fan in a playoff series, you have
Speaker 1: to be able to fall back on like core core principles.
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of it's just a basic ideology. It's
Speaker 1: it's no different than like it's something that always worked
Speaker 1: for me when I go through a shooting slump. Like
Speaker 1: when I go through a shooting slump, I focus on
Speaker 1: my fundamentals when I'm when I need to make a
Speaker 1: shot and I miss a few in a row. As
Speaker 1: him going up, all I think. I don't think about maker,
Speaker 1: miss I think about my fundamentals as I'm going up.
Speaker 1: It's do I am I balanced? Am I getting my
Speaker 1: legs into my shot? Am I shooting with big hands? Like?
Speaker 1: Do I have my hands spread? And am I shooting
Speaker 1: up instead of out? If I focus on those things
Speaker 1: instead of them making and the missing I usually will
Speaker 1: come out of my slump. And that's the way these
Speaker 1: teams have to be. They have to have some sort
Speaker 1: of like core identity, basic effort based things that they
Speaker 1: can fall back on when they struggle. And this team
Speaker 1: defends like crazy. They play super slow, so they control
Speaker 1: the pace and keep it down and uh, they have
Speaker 1: lots of shooting and defense around and Chris Paul and
Speaker 1: Devin book are doing their things. And then when they're
Speaker 1: staggering those minutes when they're off the floor, they run
Speaker 1: everything through uh Booker when CPS off the floor, and
Speaker 1: everything through CP three and Bookers off the floor and
Speaker 1: helps keep them in a rhythm. And uh, and and
Speaker 1: they're damn good. They're damn good. And and I think
Speaker 1: and I think they're on the verge of something that
Speaker 1: could potentially be a problem in a playoff series. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. Why have them in that Milwaukee Brooklyn tier
Speaker 1: I don't think. I mean, I see the argument for it.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're quite there, but they have been
Speaker 1: better lately. And yeah, they're just they're a super balanced team.
Speaker 1: And they have seven guys averaging ten points a game,
Speaker 1: or more like, they have a lot of guys who
Speaker 1: they can rely on. They're almost in a way, they're
Speaker 1: like just in terms of the balance, they're like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna Utah. They don't play anything like them just in
Speaker 1: terms of like style or pace or anything, because Utah
Speaker 1: plays really fast. But they have a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: that they can kind of rely on and they basically
Speaker 1: know they're gonna get contributions from every night. Then they
Speaker 1: have a really good guy at the top. Well, they
Speaker 1: got two really good guys in kind of ISO and
Speaker 1: creating their own shot situations with CP and Devin Booker,
Speaker 1: and that, I mean, that is a formula for being
Speaker 1: a tough playoff team, especially if you defend, because you're
Speaker 1: gonna be in those games. And then you know, Bookers
Speaker 1: kind of able to go toe to toe with almost
Speaker 1: anybody in the league at the end of the game.
Speaker 1: So if they can stay close and keep these games
Speaker 1: tight going into exactly exactly, so can CPS. So they
Speaker 1: got really two guys who can do it. Um, you
Speaker 1: know that they're just a really wid team. And they
Speaker 1: had some kind of injury COVID issues early on. They're
Speaker 1: coming through that a little bit, and that's that's been
Speaker 1: I think the tough part of maybe doing something like
Speaker 1: a power ranking so far is there's been so many
Speaker 1: teams where it's like, well, these guys have had four
Speaker 1: their top five guys missed seven, eight, nine. Can we
Speaker 1: say one thing about that though, like in terms of like,
Speaker 1: because someone was saying the same thing when we were
Speaker 1: talking the MVP debate earlier, which is the MVP debate
Speaker 1: is different and absolute ship show because because like, no
Speaker 1: one's being honest, there's a fourth of writers have put
Speaker 1: Yokich at number one, which is the most as I
Speaker 1: in thing, and like the history of basketball tape, if
Speaker 1: Yoki has one, then Wise and Steph Curry to like,
Speaker 1: if we're just gonna because our records are the basically
Speaker 1: the same and steps numbers are just as good, like
Speaker 1: and I don't see the argument for either guy, And
Speaker 1: then and Beat fans are acting like Lebron has no case.
Speaker 1: Lebron fans are acting like in Beat has No Case.
Speaker 1: It's literally turned into a total ship show. But I
Speaker 1: was talking about it with somebody this morning. It was like,
Speaker 1: you can't blame embeat for the COVID stuff, And I agree,
Speaker 1: but you know, loss Ange, the list has been ramrotted
Speaker 1: by this COVID thing as bad as any city, and
Speaker 1: for some reason, the Lakers have been Okay. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't know what that reason is, but I think it's so.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's possible that the leadership
Speaker 1: in the Laker organization, starting from Lebron and a d Down,
Speaker 1: has basically told these guys, don't mess around, stay in
Speaker 1: your hotel room and uh that this is going to
Speaker 1: impact our ability to win this season. Uh, we are
Speaker 1: we are here, we're professionals, we are doing a job.
Speaker 1: Nobody misses a COVID test, you know. Uh, nobody uh
Speaker 1: breaks the rules. And then I think some of these
Speaker 1: other teams have been a little bit more relaxed on
Speaker 1: that stuff. And I don't think it's a coincidence that
Speaker 1: the Lakers, despite living in literally a crazy city like
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, where probably half of the Instagram models of
Speaker 1: the world live, and and I'm serious, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a coincidence that they've done better. I think that
Speaker 1: there's something to be said about leadership in that and
Speaker 1: and I think that's part of it, Like em beat
Speaker 1: needs to look these dudes in the face and be like,
Speaker 1: stay in your damn hotel. We're trying to win a
Speaker 1: title here, you know what I mean. Like, I think
Speaker 1: that's something to keep in mind. Sure, Like I don't
Speaker 1: doubt that Lebron has done that, because he probably I mean,
Speaker 1: I would put money that he has done something like that,
Speaker 1: at least in some form or fashion. He probably did
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the year, having even said that
Speaker 1: Phillies eighteen and seven and the Lakers are nineteen and six,
Speaker 1: So it hasn't made a huge difference. I think those
Speaker 1: just saying the Phoenix Suns like people being like, oh, sure,
Speaker 1: I think that's part of it. I think I think
Speaker 1: you're a lessue. I'd be shocked. I'd be shocked at
Speaker 1: if he didn't stay that though. I'd be shocked at
Speaker 1: if Chris Paul didn't say something like that. Though. I
Speaker 1: just think Phoenix roster bookers bookers twenty five and famous
Speaker 1: for famous for dating models like DeAndre Ayden's in his
Speaker 1: early twenties, um Cameron Payne's kind of early twenties Camp Johnson,
Speaker 1: like that is a fairly young roster. So I think
Speaker 1: it's just in restaurant and open to they do. That
Speaker 1: is a very real thing. Absolutely. I got friends that
Speaker 1: live in the Phoenix area, so I know how open
Speaker 1: it is out there. Point being like, I don't wanna.
Speaker 1: It's just been tough overall to do this stuff. But
Speaker 1: point being, I think Phoenix is kind of coming through
Speaker 1: some of that, and they're getting healthier, a lot of
Speaker 1: their guys are playing more games, and I think end
Speaker 1: of the year they could end up in that in
Speaker 1: that broken Milwaukee too. I don't have them quite there yet,
Speaker 1: even though the record says it. Um, I just don't
Speaker 1: think they've been as overall is good despite the record. So, uh,
Speaker 1: let's let's uh, there's a couple of teams that I
Speaker 1: really want to dive into. So let's let's get moving
Speaker 1: forward here. I have. This is where we get into
Speaker 1: the mix of all the teams that are right around
Speaker 1: five hundred at eight. I put Golden State. A couple
Speaker 1: of things about Golden State because I know they've been
Speaker 1: really up and down this year. Uh their fourth and
Speaker 1: net rating in their last ten, and one of the
Speaker 1: reasons for that is they're losing close games. They're five
Speaker 1: and five in games that have involved crunch time this season,
Speaker 1: and part of that has to do with youth and uh.
Speaker 1: And it's a miracle they've managed to win five crunch
Speaker 1: time games. And that is to Steph Curry, I should
Speaker 1: have won the last two. They should have won the
Speaker 1: Dallas and the San Antonio ones that they dropped exact
Speaker 1: they had and they just made like you're kind of
Speaker 1: pointing to dumb, youthful mistakes or just bad player mistakes.
Speaker 1: Honestly bad players on that roster. But they're good. They're
Speaker 1: they're a good team because they're losing the close games. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they're blowing teams out when they play well. Uh.
Speaker 1: That and that to me is a is a sign
Speaker 1: of a good team because they're roughly in the close
Speaker 1: games and then they're winning a lot of blowouts. They're
Speaker 1: never getting blown out, or at least not as often
Speaker 1: as they were early in the season. So I think
Speaker 1: and and then uh, and then one of the biggest
Speaker 1: reasons I put them above everyone else is in terms
Speaker 1: of a tiebreaker, you know, in terms of how they
Speaker 1: project as a postseason team, like Steph Curry has been,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, the like the second or third best
Speaker 1: player in basketball this year, which is right about right
Speaker 1: around where you and I projected him. And I want
Speaker 1: you to to go into this at length, but I
Speaker 1: just wanted to pay him the compliment because again, and
Speaker 1: I've said this two or three times this season, there
Speaker 1: was a fork in the road this year about the
Speaker 1: way this season could have gone, and and Steph has
Speaker 1: resoundingly gone the route of I'm playing every night and
Speaker 1: I'm not going down without a fight. And and quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I think this is the best version of Steph Curry
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. I think he's significantly better than he
Speaker 1: was in two thousand sixteen. I know people are can't
Speaker 1: comprehend that because they're so obsessed with the results, and
Speaker 1: they can't over they can't see over the fact that
Speaker 1: they won seventy three games in two thousand sixteen. Two
Speaker 1: thousand twenty one, Steph Curry would wash two thousand sixteen.
Speaker 1: Steph Curry is such a better command of the game.
Speaker 1: He sees the floor so much better, he takes better
Speaker 1: care of the ball, he's he's just a better basketball player.
Speaker 1: And I just want to, again for the fourth or
Speaker 1: fifth time this year, just pay him a compliment. And
Speaker 1: I know you have a bunch of want to say
Speaker 1: about him, but I've just been blown away. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I would agree that he has been that guy the
Speaker 1: last thirteen games and where I so if we're doing
Speaker 1: power rankings at the moment, I almost don't disagree, just
Speaker 1: because they have been really good. Basically since Draymond Green
Speaker 1: has returned. They took a while to kind of get
Speaker 1: figured things figured out, like four or five games to
Speaker 1: really kind of figure out how they wanted to play,
Speaker 1: how they need to defend, all that stuff when he
Speaker 1: came back. But since them, like you're pointing to a
Speaker 1: lot of you said, the last ten games their fourth
Speaker 1: and net rating, fourth and net rating, yep, So I
Speaker 1: mean that doesn't surprise. They're only I think they're only
Speaker 1: five and five in those ten games, but they're fourth
Speaker 1: and net rating, which goes to what I said earlier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're but they're also very close to being like seven
Speaker 1: and three or eight and two. So it's just a
Speaker 1: matter of really figuring out how the late games need
Speaker 1: to flow, um and what they need to get done,
Speaker 1: and basically just not make as many stupid mistakes because
Speaker 1: if they can. Their bench was really good early in
Speaker 1: the year, and it's actually been really bad lately, Like
Speaker 1: they're they were actually helping the team staying games early
Speaker 1: on when that starting lineup was so bad, when the
Speaker 1: starting lineup was down fifteen every quarter, um every first quarter,
Speaker 1: and then the bench would have to bring them back.
Speaker 1: And now the inverses happened. Now that they started the
Speaker 1: creating leads in the bench has dwindled them away. And
Speaker 1: I think that's more of just who's playing with what
Speaker 1: unit more so than anything else. It's more kelly agreement
Speaker 1: with the second units, and that's when the leads tend
Speaker 1: to slip away. Um. But point being, they have been
Speaker 1: a lot better lately, Um and steps specifically so his
Speaker 1: last thirteen games, he is thirty one points a game,
Speaker 1: five and a half rebounds, five and a half, assist,
Speaker 1: fifty three seven nineties two from the line. Bananas doesn't
Speaker 1: even I mean, doesn't even make Remember what I said.
Speaker 1: I thought he would end the season around the high
Speaker 1: thirties because of shot quality in terms of his three
Speaker 1: point percentage. I didn't even disagree with you. But he
Speaker 1: looks so much. He was already starting to play better too,
Speaker 1: Like that was because he's he is unfreaking believable. He
Speaker 1: he looks night end day, from what he did earlier
Speaker 1: this season. Earlier in the season, it was like he
Speaker 1: was pump picking white open threes and he was like
Speaker 1: unsure of when to shoot the ball and when not to,
Speaker 1: when to get his teammates involved, when not to, And
Speaker 1: maybe it was all on adjustment period. And something that
Speaker 1: I was talking about with Sammus Fandiari last night was
Speaker 1: he's just played twenty games in a row for the
Speaker 1: first time in two years, Like he hadn't played the
Speaker 1: most impressive part for me, Yeah, yeah, right, So he's
Speaker 1: been really healthy, um, and he he has added some
Speaker 1: book which I actually questioned, but it doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be affecting his shot at all. His rhythm coming into
Speaker 1: his shots is really nice right now. He's he's getting
Speaker 1: his feet set correctly, which he wasn't doing early in
Speaker 1: the year. He was taking all these extra little steps
Speaker 1: and hops, um, and just like weird rhythm things that
Speaker 1: I had never really seen him do. But all that
Speaker 1: stuff has gone away now and the added strength just
Speaker 1: watching him in these past four or five six games,
Speaker 1: he's really understanding how to use it. He used to
Speaker 1: be a guy that created separation, kind of going east
Speaker 1: west right. He give these big kind of sweeping crossovers
Speaker 1: behind the back moves and he'd have to get distance
Speaker 1: from the defender moving east or west, and then he'd
Speaker 1: be able to go north and south. In the in
Speaker 1: the past four or five games against both Dallas and
Speaker 1: San Antonio, he's been like just making these tight kind
Speaker 1: of crossover in between the legs moves, and he's getting
Speaker 1: into like bigger guys bodies, Rudy Gay, Maxi kleiba Um,
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of the bigger wings and big
Speaker 1: men on these teams, and he's like going through their bodies.
Speaker 1: So he's like driving north and south now and that's
Speaker 1: making such a difference. And obviously number one, and he's
Speaker 1: getting to the rim quicker um and defenders are having
Speaker 1: less time to come over and affect his shots. And
Speaker 1: then also he's looked incredible lately offensively because Draymond's at
Speaker 1: the five and spacing is just the ultimate amplifier for
Speaker 1: superstar stats, right, and this is the James Harden thing.
Speaker 1: This is why his numbers. I think partially we're so
Speaker 1: good in Houston for so many years because he had
Speaker 1: just the most amount of space to work with at
Speaker 1: all times, and they've given that to step just out
Speaker 1: of necessity because all they're big men are hurt right
Speaker 1: now and he's been. He can get a lay up
Speaker 1: when every once he can get a three when every
Speaker 1: once he's just he's spectacular right now. Man. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's like way better than twenty sixteen, but
Speaker 1: his command is certainly better. Um, He's not quite as quick, obviously,
Speaker 1: because you never are at thirty two as you were
Speaker 1: at twenty seven. But yeah, he he is playing at
Speaker 1: his highs a level as I've seen him played probably
Speaker 1: since the two thousand seventeen playoffs, at least everything considered right,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have the talent around him this year, and
Speaker 1: then numbers have just been but naz the past month.
Speaker 1: The last thing I want to say about Steff before
Speaker 1: we move on is, like I talked about this a
Speaker 1: little bit on Twitter earlier today, but the most impressive
Speaker 1: thing to me about what he's doing this year is that, uh,
Speaker 1: he's adapting faster than the league is, which is which
Speaker 1: is wild because you know, you and I talked a
Speaker 1: lot in a in a previous podcast about how in
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen, if you look at the way
Speaker 1: these teams regarding him the way they're regarding him more
Speaker 1: like a traditional guard using traditional pick and roll coverage
Speaker 1: is not picking him up until he got to ft
Speaker 1: and he was just killing teams by taking advantage of
Speaker 1: their uh, you know, lack of awareness and their their
Speaker 1: inability to anticipate what he was about to do. Well,
Speaker 1: now you fast forward a half decade, and everybody knows
Speaker 1: what he's gonna do, and every pick and roll coverage
Speaker 1: in the entire league has been completely transformed into how
Speaker 1: to stop Steph Curry, which has become a league wide
Speaker 1: thing because so many other guards have started copying him
Speaker 1: in his ability to you know, be aggressive as a
Speaker 1: jump shoot, as a ball handler, coming off of screens
Speaker 1: and from great distances. But all of this stuff has
Speaker 1: been has been transformed into how do we stop Steph Curry?
Speaker 1: And he stayed one step ahead of him And to me,
Speaker 1: that and to me, that's why he's better and and
Speaker 1: and you know, like you you mentioned like, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: his mental uh grip of the game is a little
Speaker 1: bit better. Well, to me, that is the one of
Speaker 1: the biggest parts of the game. It's it's why I've
Speaker 1: been you know, it's one of the things I've been
Speaker 1: I've been beaten the drum with the m v p
Speaker 1: U debate as it pertains to Lebron as everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's only averaging eight, and I'm like, looking at how
Speaker 1: many guys in the league are averaging over twenty five
Speaker 1: points now, Like we have to stop watching box scores here, people,
Speaker 1: because it's just not a tell for how much a
Speaker 1: person is impacting winning, because you know, Steph Curry stats
Speaker 1: are are more or less the same as they were
Speaker 1: in two thousand and sixteen, but his impact on winning now,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, is so much greater. His ability to
Speaker 1: control these games, and I think it starts from here.
Speaker 1: And what I'd say is it wasn't that way early
Speaker 1: in this season. And it's been interesting how quickly he's
Speaker 1: adapt adapted, because earlier in the season, these games like
Speaker 1: get out of hand early, and it would just be like, dude,
Speaker 1: you gotta get aggressive, man, Like you gotta start doing
Speaker 1: something else. This game is gonna be gone over over
Speaker 1: kind of the weekend against Dallas and then last night
Speaker 1: against San Antonio, he sensed the game getting away early
Speaker 1: and he's like, Okay, I just gotta be aggressive, Like
Speaker 1: I just gotta go. And I know it's early in
Speaker 1: the game, and I don't want to burn myself out,
Speaker 1: but I just gotta start scoring, and he did. He
Speaker 1: wasn't even making threes last night against San Antonio to
Speaker 1: start that game. He's like, all right, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go get four or five layups and keep us in
Speaker 1: this thing. Whereas early in the season he was just
Speaker 1: kind of like getting off the ball and kind of
Speaker 1: putting his hands up and being like, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: want to deal with this. I just kind of want
Speaker 1: to want to play basketball how I want to. But
Speaker 1: he's figured out, all right, I just gotta be more
Speaker 1: aggressive in certain spots and keep this team in games,
Speaker 1: because if I do, and I can get the game
Speaker 1: close in the end, then I like my chances against
Speaker 1: basically anybody in the league. Well one thing, one thing
Speaker 1: I'll cut him from Slack four is and I said
Speaker 1: this from the very beginning. He was bound to struggle
Speaker 1: to start this season because basketball's rhythm sport and he
Speaker 1: was away from the game for a really long time,
Speaker 1: and so like, you know, uh, I attribute it to
Speaker 1: learning a new roster, learning how to win with this roster,
Speaker 1: but also just like Okay, playing NBA basketball is really hard,
Speaker 1: and I didn't do it for three years and I
Speaker 1: think almost three years, so I think I think that's
Speaker 1: a big part of it. So really quickly here that
Speaker 1: we talked about how there's this big mess of teams
Speaker 1: and and we had Golden State at the top because
Speaker 1: of of Steph Curry. The two teams that I picked out,
Speaker 1: these are the teams I had ninth and tent, the
Speaker 1: two teams that I picked out from that crowd of teams. Again,
Speaker 1: this is ahead ahead of teams like Denver, ahead of
Speaker 1: teams like Portland's where Sacramento in Toronto, Toronto, I had
Speaker 1: ten because they've gone nine and five in their last
Speaker 1: four teen games during that span, their sixth and offense
Speaker 1: and seventh and net rating. They're starting to look more
Speaker 1: like the old Toronto Raptors. Pascal Siak, I'm starting to
Speaker 1: play better, you know. Uh, they're more or less the
Speaker 1: same identity that they had. Nick Nurse as an amazing
Speaker 1: coach man. Oh yeah, just figures it out. And it
Speaker 1: took him ten or fifteen games, but he's like, all right,
Speaker 1: I know what I gotta do to win with this roster.
Speaker 1: And now they look great, and he kept him dialed in.
Speaker 1: That could have slipped off the rails really quickly and
Speaker 1: they could have gone into tanking. Um uh and the
Speaker 1: ninth and I want to talk about them more after
Speaker 1: you give me your last two teams. But I put
Speaker 1: Sacramento ninth. Their seven and three in their last ten,
Speaker 1: they're one of They're the only team in the bottom
Speaker 1: half of the league or the bottom two thirds of
Speaker 1: the league that is better than six and four in
Speaker 1: their last ten, because everybody just continues to hover around
Speaker 1: five hundred in this ridiculously talented league. But in this
Speaker 1: seven wins, they beat the Clippers, they beat the Nuggets,
Speaker 1: they beat the Celtics, they beat the Pelicans, who have
Speaker 1: been almost as good as them in the past ten games,
Speaker 1: and they beat the Raptors, who, again who have been
Speaker 1: dialed in over the last fourteen games. They have a
Speaker 1: mountain of quality wins that's coming in. There are eleventh
Speaker 1: in the league in defense over that span, so they're
Speaker 1: playing a lot better defense from where they were to
Speaker 1: start the season, which was historically bad. So I put
Speaker 1: Sacramento at ninth before we dive into Sacramento, because I
Speaker 1: do want to talk about them a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Did you have any different teams in nine oh ten? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I had two different teams. I just went,
Speaker 1: I went, I went, Boston and Denver just on. I think,
Speaker 1: like you said, there's a glood of teams right there,
Speaker 1: right and for the same reasons that we gave for
Speaker 1: Golden State being above the rest of these teams, which
Speaker 1: I wouldn't necessarily have. But look, I'm a Warriors fan,
Speaker 1: so I'll just outside with that. Um No, I think
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, Yo Kich is one
Speaker 1: of the top six or seven players in the league,
Speaker 1: get worse, and if it came down to it in
Speaker 1: a series against Sacramento or any other kind of West
Speaker 1: playoff team behind Golden State, I would probably take Denver um.
Speaker 1: And if we're just doing tie breakers, I'm going to
Speaker 1: kind of base it on that. So I have Denver
Speaker 1: and then Boston for and and Boston for kind of
Speaker 1: the same reasons. I think Tatum has been really good
Speaker 1: once again this year, and Jaylen Brown has taken just
Speaker 1: in a Banana's level leap. I don't even understand how
Speaker 1: he did it because they didn't even have a long
Speaker 1: off season like he is so much better this year
Speaker 1: and he's just really gotten mores in the bubble. I
Speaker 1: think the bubble was an off season for some of
Speaker 1: those guys, and they were playing games, but it was
Speaker 1: almost like there their normal off season, like pick up, right,
Speaker 1: but they were doing it in a more kind of
Speaker 1: organized environment, so they were actually getting instruction while it
Speaker 1: was happening. We've seen kind of the same thing with
Speaker 1: BAM because Band's gotten a lot of better too, Um
Speaker 1: but often destroyed by injuries too. And Covid. Yeah, JN
Speaker 1: was out with the sordiny for a while. They lost
Speaker 1: Hadum for a while there in the in the smarts
Speaker 1: out right now, the propplled his calf. Yeah, they're in trouble. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if they get healthy, I think they'll still be I
Speaker 1: don't think they're like a contender contender, but they're still
Speaker 1: gonna be a really good playoff team at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. So that it was like that so
Speaker 1: far down by the way is just a testament to
Speaker 1: how ridiculously good the league is right now. Yep, yep,
Speaker 1: exactly know. Those are two super talented teams. Denver has
Speaker 1: the same issues that we've touched on. They can't really
Speaker 1: guard anybody, even though it has been better lately. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they're just gonna get Denvers, just gonna get
Speaker 1: ran by good teams because they their defense isn't good enough.
Speaker 1: That kind of their saving grace last year was that
Speaker 1: they did have Tory Craig and Jeremy Grant to throw
Speaker 1: at other teams. You know, if they needed to go
Speaker 1: a little bit more defensive minded, they could. They don't
Speaker 1: even really have that option this year. They've like gone
Speaker 1: all in on offense. And then Jamal Murray is who
Speaker 1: all of us who were Jamal Murray doubters kind of thought.
Speaker 1: He It's like he still has a chance to be
Speaker 1: a really good player. He's still really young. I don't
Speaker 1: want to come in too hard on the guy, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't the guy that we saw in the bubble.
Speaker 1: So and unless he like gets in another playoff scenario
Speaker 1: this year and it's like similar again and it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's just one of these weird guys who's gonna be
Speaker 1: averaging during the regular season that amazing in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: their ultimate ceiling is going to be somewhat limited if
Speaker 1: they don't get a lot better defensively. They you know,
Speaker 1: I watched that Laker Denver game twice. In the Lakers
Speaker 1: turning it up and absolutely obliterating them kind of took
Speaker 1: the shine off the apple of what was actually a
Speaker 1: pretty solid Denver performance. You know, through through two and
Speaker 1: a half quarters, Denver took it to them, and they
Speaker 1: present real problems like Jamal Murray is still really really
Speaker 1: good when he's playing well. I mean he's he's inconsistent,
Speaker 1: but insist what he's playing well. They they have, you know,
Speaker 1: when Will Barton's healthy, who he was not healthy in
Speaker 1: the playoffs last year, he's really a defensively um. You know,
Speaker 1: Monte Morris is as good a bench guard as you'll
Speaker 1: find in the league. You know, Michael Porter Jr. Uh
Speaker 1: is starting to figure out his his offensive role alongside
Speaker 1: Yokichen Murray. They have a lot to build on. But
Speaker 1: twelve Yeah, to me, uh, they just have a long
Speaker 1: way to go in terms of figuring out how to
Speaker 1: how to overcompensate for their their their defensive shortcomings. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, I think they need a scheme in a
Speaker 1: way more similar to what the Lakers do and and
Speaker 1: kind of over pressure the three point line with their
Speaker 1: guards and try to funnel everything into Yokis, who's actually
Speaker 1: okay as long as he's under the basket waiting for
Speaker 1: people and not guarding out in space. Yeah, he's in space,
Speaker 1: it's a nightmare. But he's he's so smart and he
Speaker 1: uses his length really well when he's around the rim,
Speaker 1: like he gets a lot of deflections and he can
Speaker 1: kind of just bothers shots and like almost a weirdly
Speaker 1: Draymond Green manner, Like he's not as good as Draymond
Speaker 1: obviously on that end, but like it's the same type
Speaker 1: of thing where it's like wow that you don't really
Speaker 1: see it just like normally because he's not super athletic.
Speaker 1: He's not like gonna just absolutely destroy people physically, but
Speaker 1: he's just uses his length really well and he's super
Speaker 1: duper smart. He visits himself well, he rotates at the
Speaker 1: correct times, he takes away two guys at the same time.
Speaker 1: Like he is really smart. But it's just you gotta
Speaker 1: keep him under the rim because if he gets in space,
Speaker 1: it's a nightmare for sure, so quickly before we get
Speaker 1: out of here. So we did agree on our last
Speaker 1: We did disagree on our last two. I had Sacramento
Speaker 1: and in Toronto, you at Boston and Denver. UM. But
Speaker 1: we did say we wanted to talk about Sacramento for
Speaker 1: a second. So UM, like we said, five really quality
Speaker 1: wins in their last seven wins, seven wins in their
Speaker 1: last ten games. UM. Zach Low did a deep dive
Speaker 1: with uh Deer and Fox in an interview the other day.
Speaker 1: If you haven't listened to that yet, listen to it,
Speaker 1: dear and Fox is just about as likable of guys
Speaker 1: you'll find in the league. You could tell he's just
Speaker 1: an absolute hoops junkie. He's uh loves the game. He's
Speaker 1: enjoying every minute of what they're doing out there. Uh
Speaker 1: and and uh he's not like, you know, bogged down
Speaker 1: in the complaining about the league right now and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. He's just you could just tell he's a
Speaker 1: kid who was jubilant and and just loves and just
Speaker 1: loves playing basketball. And then one of the things that
Speaker 1: zach Low touched on that I thought was really interesting
Speaker 1: is one, they're playing better defense, um, which when you
Speaker 1: watch them it makes sense to uh to the naked eye.
Speaker 1: And then too, they found a closing lineup that works.
Speaker 1: They're playing Rashawn Holmes at center, very athletic, very switchable,
Speaker 1: really really good player. Um. He's great finishing around the rim,
Speaker 1: which is crazy because he was not like that when
Speaker 1: he was in Philly. He was a dunker. He's kind
Speaker 1: of more like a Kelly you Bery kind of guy,
Speaker 1: like if he was throwing it down at the rim.
Speaker 1: He was making everything, but he couldn't he couldn't finish
Speaker 1: around the room other than that. Um. And then they're
Speaker 1: playing Harrison Barnes at the four, and then they're playing
Speaker 1: Buddy Hill, Yrise Halliburton and dear and Fox. But the
Speaker 1: primary reason why they've been so good is Dearren Foxes
Speaker 1: all of a sudden a superstar. And it's not like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not quite Derrick Rose in two thousand eleven.
Speaker 1: But I can't remember a guard in the last few
Speaker 1: years pretty much since like Russell Westbrook when he was
Speaker 1: at his athletic peak, who you just can't stay in
Speaker 1: front of him, and and and the only way to
Speaker 1: stay in front of him is to essentially run a
Speaker 1: drop coverage, in which case he's added this arsenal of
Speaker 1: floaters and step backs and stuff from like five to
Speaker 1: ten feet where he can finish over the top and
Speaker 1: and he's flat out become a star, and that in
Speaker 1: combination with finding some lineups that work and then playing defense,
Speaker 1: has led to a lot of really quality wins. And
Speaker 1: the Lakers have Sacramento coming up on the schedule. I
Speaker 1: think here and I think in a couple of days,
Speaker 1: and that is an infinitely more interesting game now than
Speaker 1: it was a few days ago. They're just a really
Speaker 1: fun team man specifically like that closing lineup. But he's
Speaker 1: an incredible shooter, like just one of like in again
Speaker 1: after buying out. Yeah, one of these just like the
Speaker 1: most unconscious like gunners in the league, but just in
Speaker 1: the most fun way possible because he really shoots it well,
Speaker 1: Like he doesn't care if he's missed his last seven shots.
Speaker 1: He's letting the next one fly. He like he never
Speaker 1: thinks twice about it, and he's good enough of a
Speaker 1: shooter to like make that work. Um, Haliburton is just
Speaker 1: super fun for a rookie, way beyond his year's I
Speaker 1: qise a really good passer, smart team defender time. Right,
Speaker 1: do you remember, No, just two years he was just
Speaker 1: two years guy, ad I always stay to your guy
Speaker 1: at Iowa State. Um, he was a he was a
Speaker 1: big guy on draft Twitter. I was obviously following a
Speaker 1: lot of the NBA draft stuff last year because the
Speaker 1: Warriors were going to have one of the best picks
Speaker 1: in the league. Um, he was a darling of all
Speaker 1: the NBA Draft Twitter guys. Um, just just a super
Speaker 1: smart player, like a guy who will absolutely played for
Speaker 1: a championship team at some point in his career. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if the people of a young player
Speaker 1: comes into league knowing how to play off the ball,
Speaker 1: which is extremely right. He's like he was like early
Speaker 1: in their games this year, he was like directing traffic
Speaker 1: and like telling guys where to go offensively latent in games.
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, who is this kid? He's only
Speaker 1: years old. He's super impressive obviously at that He's got
Speaker 1: good size though too. Yeah, the touch is like, the
Speaker 1: touch is good. He's always historically in college like now,
Speaker 1: he's above eighty percent from the line. So I mean,
Speaker 1: I think he's gonna be fine as a shooter. He'll
Speaker 1: never be a super dynamic off the dribble guy just
Speaker 1: because of their limiting factors of the form unless he
Speaker 1: really changes something. But he's just gonna be a really
Speaker 1: good player for a long time, like a guy it
Speaker 1: ends up on a championship team at some point just
Speaker 1: because he does so many things. Well, Um, Harrison Barnes
Speaker 1: is just having like almost a mid career renaissance. Like
Speaker 1: he's a good passer now and like he's savvy veteran
Speaker 1: and he makes all he's like winning play. It's like
Speaker 1: it's hilarious. He hit this offensive rebound put back against
Speaker 1: the Clippers the other night where I was like, first
Speaker 1: of all, how the hell did he do that? And
Speaker 1: then second of all, like that's the play. Eight nine
Speaker 1: percent of the league quits on Like he just go
Speaker 1: back on defense and he's like, no, no, no, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go over the top of Kawai freaking Leonard and
Speaker 1: I'm going to put this ball in the basket. And
Speaker 1: Kauai is like one of the best contested rebounders ever
Speaker 1: for his size. You know, yeah, Like I love it, man,
Speaker 1: Like obviously, Harrison Barnes was a point of patriot for
Speaker 1: many Warriors fans after the twenty sixteen finals after not
Speaker 1: being able to make anything, but that dude, he's reinvented himself.
Speaker 1: He's having an incredible year and I would I'd love
Speaker 1: to have him back on the Warriors now. He'd be
Speaker 1: an incredible He's an incredible piece for any good team.
Speaker 1: But ultimately it does come down to Deer and Fox,
Speaker 1: who has just been insane. I want to say he's
Speaker 1: like game on fifty five eighties something from the field,
Speaker 1: eight assists for rebounds. What he has really learned how
Speaker 1: to do. When I was watching that Philly game last night,
Speaker 1: He's obviously one of the fastest guys in the league,
Speaker 1: like everybody knows that, But what he's learned how to
Speaker 1: do is change speeds and control his pace to where
Speaker 1: it's like, you have no idea when he's going like
Speaker 1: when he's gonna go slower, when he's gonna go fast.
Speaker 1: And that's when you see the real mastery by these
Speaker 1: super quick guards when they learn, Okay, I am one
Speaker 1: of the fastest guys on the floor no matter who
Speaker 1: I'm playing against, but I also know how to use
Speaker 1: that to my advantage, right, Like I know how to
Speaker 1: change speeds enough to where you're always gonna be off balance,
Speaker 1: and if I can just keep you a little bit
Speaker 1: off balance, I'm gonna blow by you basically every time.
Speaker 1: Because my top end speed is so much faster than yours.
Speaker 1: He's just he's a delight to watch man, and like
Speaker 1: you said, he's one of the best personalities in the NBA.
Speaker 1: It's it kind of sucks that he's stuck in Sacramento
Speaker 1: because it's not it's not a big market, and he'll
Speaker 1: just never get that much media coverage. But no, he's
Speaker 1: just he's a super fun player person like in every way,
Speaker 1: like you just want to route for that dude, even
Speaker 1: if he's not on your team. He's he's amazing. He's amazing.
Speaker 1: I thought he he said something I I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: hoops nerd, so I I always get excited about stuff
Speaker 1: like this, but he he said something that was super
Speaker 1: fascinating in that interview was Zaklow that I thought was
Speaker 1: a really interesting thing as in terms of a league
Speaker 1: wide trend. He basically said, when I got into the league,
Speaker 1: guys went under screens on me, and he's and he's like,
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm I'm a better shooter now than I
Speaker 1: was then. But he's like, I think he basically said
Speaker 1: that every team in the league goes over the top
Speaker 1: of screen and roll now like and this is a
Speaker 1: steph Curry thing. This is the thing that this is
Speaker 1: the thing that Steph Curry changed about the NBA. He
Speaker 1: changed the way these teams defend. And he's like, he's like,
Speaker 1: I am getting into the paint better than I ever
Speaker 1: have in my life because no matter who I play,
Speaker 1: these teams are practicing going over the top of screen
Speaker 1: and roll and so you know, now this is where
Speaker 1: I'm kind of adding to that, like he's a good
Speaker 1: not great shooter, so that he's not a player that
Speaker 1: I personally would go over the top of screen and
Speaker 1: roll on. But because teams are just no, it'll be
Speaker 1: an interesting thing in a playoff series. I think I
Speaker 1: was just about to say that, right, Like, a smart
Speaker 1: team is probably gonna like during the year, you're just
Speaker 1: working on the stuff that you're gonna do a lot,
Speaker 1: because that's how you have to guard everybody. It's easier
Speaker 1: to just keep kind of uniform principles on a night
Speaker 1: tonight basis and not really all just for him those
Speaker 1: much a smart coach is gonna be like, we're just
Speaker 1: gonna go under screens on them, and then that's gonna
Speaker 1: be when either he turns the next corner and becomes
Speaker 1: a true superstar, and he can punish you when you
Speaker 1: go under, or he's so smart and so crafty that
Speaker 1: even when you are going under, he learns how to
Speaker 1: work re screens well enough, and he learns how he
Speaker 1: to use kind of this guy on his craft on
Speaker 1: top of his speed to really create advantages no matter
Speaker 1: how teams are guarding him. Yeah, and and and and
Speaker 1: I I thought the same thing when he said that,
Speaker 1: and Zachlo actually brought it up in the thing. He's like,
Speaker 1: you know, these teams are gonna make you make jumpshots, right,
Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah. But but the part of that
Speaker 1: that was interesting is it's an important context to try
Speaker 1: to frame regular season basketball because you know, like we
Speaker 1: talk all the time about, you know, the Milwaukee Bucks
Speaker 1: and their lack of adjustments, but I think, I think,
Speaker 1: I think there are rare teams that really try to
Speaker 1: adjust on a game to game basis in the regular season.
Speaker 1: I think the Lakers are an example of this, and
Speaker 1: I think that's why they're the number one defense in
Speaker 1: the league. Frank Vogel approaches every single regular season game
Speaker 1: like it's a playoff game. He builds a custom scouting
Speaker 1: report and a custom defensive game plan. But I think
Speaker 1: a lot of these teams in the grind of the
Speaker 1: regular season, trust a basic set of principles, and so
Speaker 1: that's an example of that. And I think Darren Fox
Speaker 1: kind of like tattletaled on the rest of the league
Speaker 1: in a way because he basically said, like, like, all
Speaker 1: of these teams are guarding the same way, and they're
Speaker 1: seeing it on they're seeing it on film, and it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're we're on the road in Sacramento tonight. What like,
Speaker 1: what what's the game plan. Okay, we're gonna do our
Speaker 1: stock you know, pick and roll coverage. You know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do you know, We're gonna just on these you know,
Speaker 1: based concepts all game long. And there's an advantage to
Speaker 1: that as it pertains to hiding your cards, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Although that's a big Steve Kerr thing that I like,
Speaker 1: Kurr never really outright says that, but I know he
Speaker 1: doesn't make a ton of adjustments during the regular season
Speaker 1: because he doesn't want to show his cards too early,
Speaker 1: and but it makes sense in the NBA, though he honestly,
Speaker 1: he honestly waits. He waits too long in playoff series
Speaker 1: to adjust so that always pisces me off to like
Speaker 1: he'll wait till the last possible moment to make the
Speaker 1: biggest adjustment. It's like to just do it earlier so
Speaker 1: you can get the series over with. Um Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know. My thing is, I think for a
Speaker 1: lot of rosters it is tough to adjust on a
Speaker 1: night to night basis, Like a roster like the Lakers
Speaker 1: or the Bucks or the Sixers where they like a
Speaker 1: lot of good, really smart players. Sure you can adjust
Speaker 1: on a night to night basis, but for your run
Speaker 1: of the mill NBA roster, like I'm watching it with
Speaker 1: the Warriors this year, a lot of these guys I
Speaker 1: wouldn't trust to make game the game adjustments, Like I
Speaker 1: just wouldn't. It would run the wrong game plan. They
Speaker 1: just think, oh, we've been playing drop coverage of the
Speaker 1: last three games, and tonight we're you know, we're either
Speaker 1: going under or we're um, we're hard hedging. And they
Speaker 1: would just totally forget and now we're all out of
Speaker 1: rotation because Kelly Ubery once again forgot what coverage were playing.
Speaker 1: Like Yeah, Like, I think I think there's an important
Speaker 1: distinction to make between like good smart teams and then
Speaker 1: just kind of your average or below average NBA teams. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I just think it's funny. I I think
Speaker 1: it makes more sense to Uh, I think it makes
Speaker 1: more sense to you know, you're right to cater it
Speaker 1: to your specific roster. And maybe with a group of
Speaker 1: young guys, you're more focused on discipline, so it makes
Speaker 1: more sense to get them just to try to do
Speaker 1: the same thing over and over again. But with the
Speaker 1: veteran teams are smarter, it's kind of like practice for
Speaker 1: the playoffs to teach them to play different types of defense.
Speaker 1: I would probably go with that second option. And uh.
Speaker 1: And and I'm a big believer in what the Lakers
Speaker 1: do defensively. Uh. And then as far as hiding things go,
Speaker 1: like it makes a ton of sense in the NFL
Speaker 1: because you're you're you're getting somebody in a one game setting,
Speaker 1: and you know, if you bring something out and it
Speaker 1: can help you control half, it could literally swing. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, like they talked about how Todd Bowles did
Speaker 1: that for the Buccaneers. Basically like he was always a
Speaker 1: guy who blitz. He blitzed over downs for the most
Speaker 1: part leading into that game, and then suddenly in the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl, He's like, nope, four man, rush to safety's back.
Speaker 1: We're gonna say we're just taking away tyree kill. He's
Speaker 1: not gonna catch out anything over the top. And it
Speaker 1: obviously messed the Chiefs up enough to where Tampa Bay
Speaker 1: controlled that game. Yeah, Whereas if they played it again,
Speaker 1: maybe the Tampa Bay, maybe Kansas City can make an adjustment.
Speaker 1: But in the NBA, it's like it's like, you know
Speaker 1: you can you can get caught with your pants down
Speaker 1: in game one and then control the series by game three.
Speaker 1: So like it's it's it's totally it's totally different. But uh,
Speaker 1: really really good stuff. Today. We actually did manage to
Speaker 1: get through all pen although we did go an hour
Speaker 1: in twenty six minutes, and uh, you and I probably
Speaker 1: both have some work to do, so we're gonna call
Speaker 1: it a day. But thank you guys, all of you
Speaker 1: for listening. Podcast version coming later Tommy. As always, I
Speaker 1: appreciate your help, man, and I appreciate your support, and
Speaker 1: we will see you early next week. Thanks man. Sounds good.
Speaker 1: Can't wait.